


remnant faces, fleeting traces

by Resamille



Category: Homestuck
Genre: An Unnecessary Number of Johns, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Character Death, Character Death, Doomed Timeline(s) (Homestuck), Dream Bubbles (Homestuck), Hurt/Comfort, Kanaya Voted Best Moirail Ever, Knight of Blood God Tier, M/M, Meteorstuck, Minor Gamzee Makara/Terezi Pyrope, Multi, Not Really Character Death, Pining, Quadrant Blurring, and all the bullshit that entails, but also minor Terezi/everyone, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:40:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25705255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resamille/pseuds/Resamille
Summary: “This timeline is fucked, Dave,” Karkat says. “You know that.”You know that. Of course you do. But you're Dave Strider, a helpless boy who has just been told by an alien that your three best friends are dead as dirt while playing a game that was meant to bring you all together, to strengthen bonds of friendship and teamwork. Not rip them away from you.“Come on,” he says, “Lets get out of here.”In which: Karkat goes god tier, Dave kisses John, John dies, and it all works out in the end.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, John Egbert/Dave Strider, John Egbert/Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 9
Kudos: 72





	remnant faces, fleeting traces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [viraseii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viraseii/gifts).



> i hate my life.
> 
> fuck canon. the lore's mine now. fuck classpects. fuck god tiering. i make shit up as i go. andrew hussie can eat my ass. viv can eat my ass for suggesting this fic. let's pretend this is a two-month early birthday gift.
> 
> this entire fic hinges on a questionably reasonable explanation for god tier knights of blood powers and you know what i dont care anymore just take this heaping pile of. whatever it is. i'm so mad that i had fun writing it. it's 2020 for gods sake. this year is already so bad. and now i'm a goddamn homestuck on top of everything else. the longest of disappointed sighs.
> 
> title from echoes of you by marianas trench, which is a very fitting song for this fic and actually it what i should have been listening to when i was writing now that i think about it.

Your name is Dave Strider. You are doomed.

The thing about doomed timelines is you never realize you're in one until everything goes to shit. One day you're telling some angry troll to go fuck himself, and the next you've been murdered in your dreams, someone's blood is staining your clothes, and the world is ending.

You'd think, maybe, being a Knight of Time, whatever the hell that means, that you might be able to tell when things were veering off the right path. But your Seer is dead, and so are your hopes for surviving this hellscape.

You're sitting on the roof of your apartment, or what's left of it, and staring down into the lava below. The heat rises up like the sun off Tarmac, and if your eyes are watering, you'll blame it on that and not the memory of Rose's last words as you held her, broken, in your arms.

You think back and try to pinpoint where it all fell apart. Jade prototyping her omniscient dog creature probably wasn't a good start, but Rose had said there was still a chance, if only you could manage to get by for now. You did not get by.

Or maybe it was the moment you gave into complete idiocy and you were trying so hard not to _say_ something stupid that instead you _did_ something stupid, like kissing John “I'm-Not-A-Homosexual” Egbert right on the mouth.

You haven't seen him since.

Or maybe it was when, in a chance—

(Chance? _Chance_? Is anything random anymore? Isn't it all outlined and marked down and scripted by fate? Or is that a cruel joke, too?)

—In an encounter with dog-god-boosted Jack Noir, a redirected attack hit Jade instead of John, and even as Rose kissed her back to life, Jack was so enraged that he killed Rose, then took Jade and disappeared somewhere.

You're all alone.

“Get up asshole.”

You jolt so hard you nearly tip off the side of the roof and into the lava far below.

You whirl, and then your brain does a full-stop because: “Is that a fucking _cape_?”

The troll—you can only assume this is a troll, because they're certainly not human, and certainly not anything else that's been in this game, so far, and the two little horns peeking out of a tangle of black hair are a good indication, you think—rolls his eyes.

“Of course you'd get hung up on the cape.”

“Which one are you?”

A quirked brow. “Give a guess, bulgemuncher.”

“Karkat?”

“Oh, good, your brain still works.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Rescuing your lame ass.”

“Rescuing,” you repeat. “What about John and Jade?”

You see Karkat's jaw working while he hesitates, and horror washes over you. Unbidden, your breath falls from your lips in a horrified whisper, “No, they can't—they aren't—”

“This timeline is fucked, Dave,” Karkat says. “You know that.”

You know that. Of course you do. But you're Dave Strider, a helpless boy who has just been told by an alien that your three best friends are dead as dirt while playing a game that was meant to bring you all together, to strengthen bonds of friendship and teamwork. Not rip them away from you.

Your vision is hazy, and suddenly Karkat is standing right in front of you. He grips your shoulders, and you instinctively reach out and cling to the fabric of his shirt.

“Come on,” he says, “Lets get out of here.”

A dizzy spell takes you, and you close your eyes, swaying into Karkat.

Quietly—you didn't expect Karkat to be able to do anything quietly, and yet—quietly, you hear him say, “I've got you, Dave.”

When you wake up, you're buried in what you think are stuffed animals of some sort.

“Oh, he's up!” says someone with a sort of surprised glee. “You didn't kill him, after all, Karkat!”

“Of course I didn't kill him!” Karkat snaps. “I know what I'm doing.”

“Really?” says the same voice as before, “That's a first!”

“Eat shit, Terezi.”

You open your eyes finally, staring up into a grey ceiling, surrounded by colorful dragon plushies (at least they aren't puppets, thank fuck), and say, “What the hell.”

“Dave!” a troll with red glasses pops into your field of view. “You smell different than I expected. You were much tastier on the screen. Actually, wait, I need to confirm—”

Terezi leans towards you, and you bat her face away while scrambling out of the dragon pile. “Get off me.”

Terezi leans back, grin still firmly planted across rows of sharp teeth. “Aw, I thought we had something special going on, coolkid.”

“Terezi, please stop bothering our guest.”

“I'm just having a bit of fun, Kanaya,” Terezi protests. “Dave knows how to have fun, unlike you and Kar.”

“He told you to leave him alone,” Kanaya says.

“Dave says a lot of shit he doesn't mean,” Terezi says.

“That's true,” you interject, “But right now I could really do with less tasting and more explanation. I'm just really not down for the whole being slobbered over like a dog, though I know I'm irresistible, god, someone start telling me what's going on so I shut up, please.”

“Somehow,” Karkat, blissfully, interrupts. “You never get any better, no matter what timeline.” He sighs, then adds, “Terezi, why don't you go hunt down Gamzee?”

“Ugh,” Terezi says, but she leaves via transportalizer all the same.

“Wait, no, go back to that timeline thing,” you say. “You've met them?”

“Many,” Kayana answers, even though you're looking at Karkat.

He's sitting backwards in a chair, arms braced on the back and leaning his cheek into the crook of his elbow. His eyes are on you. He looks... sad. Well, that makes two. You're pretty fucked up yourself, if you're honest.

“In dreams,” Kanaya continues. “It's possible to reach out to other timelines, and to the afterlife. It seems to be rarer in this timeline compared to others, for some reason, but it happens. It's possible that another timeline must manage to reach us before we can connect, rather than the other way around.

“We're on the same meteor we were contacting your session from before,” Kanaya continues. “Karkat used his god tier powers to bring you here.”

“But it doesn't matter,” you say, putting no effort into hiding the defeat in your voice. “The reckoning is still going to happen. We'll die.”

“Perhaps,” Kanaya says, “But we are not longer in the veil. We're currently drifting out to space. It was a recommendation from... someone from another timeline. She said it was something her group had done, after meeting here, in order to access another session. We have no such coordinates, so it's likely we will be eventually consumed by horrorterrors, but we've delayed the inevitable, for now.”

“This is all that's left,” Karkat says. “We barely survived our session, and then your Jack intervened, and, well, you know the rest. It's all a mess.”

You can't help the shudder in your breath. “It's always been a mess. I fucked it all up.”

Unexpectedly, Karkat looks stricken at this confession, but it's right now that your horrible affliction of being unable to keep your mouth shut decides to kick in.

“I was so stupid, and I kissed John and—” Some part of you starts _screaming_ that you just said that shit out loud, but it's obviously all bark and no bite (no, stop, dog metaphors are terrible, you know what happened to Bec), because it doesn't stop you from barreling on. “—and I broke the group apart, and then I couldn't save Rose or Jade, and I don't even know what happened to John or where he went or how he died, and he must hate me, or did hate me, and there's so much shit I could have fixed. I'm the fucking Knight of Time, so I should go back and fix everything—”

“You'll just make it worse,” Kanaya deadpans. “Um. Karkat. Do you.”

“Could you,” Karkat answers, just as faltering. “Give us a minute?”

A pained expression flits over Kanaya's face, but she nods and quietly transportalizes away. And then it's just you and Karkat. You, standing with Rose's blood on your shirt, literally, and on your hands, metaphorically. Karkat, sitting forlorn in a chair, so still and silent and so unlike what you expected.

Something happened, you realize, in the hesitation between you both. In this bridge between shattered moments, in this slice of time that you hold in your palm, you understand that there's more to it than your botched session, because this Karkat is fundamentally different, somehow, to the one you spoke to before, over capslock and memes.

“Your session was doomed from the start,” Karkat finally says.

For some uncanny reason, your heart is beating rapidly against your ribcage, like a bird suddenly given new hope for escape.

Karkat takes a deep breath and stares at the floor near your feet. “I was never supposed to go god tier.”

You shouldn't feel the relief that rushes through you, but you do. It floods you like endorphins, makes the tips of your fingers tingle as it settles over you: it's not your fault. Somehow, it's _not your fault_.

Karkat's watching you, but you're too busy riding the high of forgiving yourself to give him whatever he wants, so he keeps talking instead.

“We know by comparing to other timelines. They're all—Ever other instance of me didn't set their session on the train to disaster. I was too reckless, and I didn't pay enough attention to my team. I went god tier early, way earlier than anyone else, and I pushed them too far, too soon. And when Jack showed up, I—I lost so many friends.”

As Karkat talks, the relief begins to fade, trickling out like Rose's lifeforce, through the wound in her chest. In its place breeds something almost-foreign. In your life, you've felt anger, and frustration, and disquiet, but rarely have you felt hate. Even in your darkest moments, you were so practiced at being unaffected, you found it difficult to summon the ability to loathe.

Yet now it slips over you like a wave, a rush of festering anger and resentment.

“So _you're_ the reason they're dead,” you growl at Karkat. Your voice doesn't sound like your own. There's too much emotion behind it.

Karkat flinches. “Yes. I... Yes.”

“I can't fucking believe you. All of you. You acted like everything was fucking fine—didn't tell us anything about how we were all fucked over from the beginning. Did you enjoy watching us run around like idiots? Playing your games?”

You suddenly have a flashback to silly art exchanges with Terezi. Your blood boils. You grab Karkat by his shirt and haul him up, forcing him to stumble over the chair, clinging to your arm for balance, and by the way his eyes widen, you seem to have caught him off guard.

“It's your fault! You ruined _everything_ , and we never had a chance! I bet I did everything right, but your fuck up meant we were always going to die—”

Karkat makes a sound dubiously similar to a scoff. “You? Doing everything right? Don't pin all of this on me, Strider. I might be a failure, but so are you. None of the other yous macked on Egbert and tore everything apart. We didn't warn you because even if this wasn't a bad timeline, you would have gone and fucked it anyway.”

“Bullshit,” you spit, but your hands are suddenly trembling. “You don't know that.”

“I've seen the other timelines,” Karkat sneers, “You never work it out with him. Get over yourself.”

You drop him unceremoniously back into his chair, and he grunts. “The fuck are you talking about?”

He snaps his jaws at you, like a wolf in warning. “Doesn't matter. Hate me if you want, but I saved your ass, and now maybe you'll get a chance to see your stupid friends in your dreams. A little gratitude might be appreciated.”

“Why should I thank you? It's your fault in the first place!”

“I didn't have to pull you off your stupid planet, did I? You would have sat there, mourning, until Jack killed you. Would you rather I left you there to rot?”

“Maybe, yeah!” you counter. “Then I wouldn't have to deal with this bullshit.”

“Is everything alright?” says Kanaya's soft voice from the other side of the room. “I could hear yelling.”

“No,” you snap at the same time Karkat sighs out, “Everything's peachy.”

“Oh,” says Kanaya.

“I'm out,” you announce, and storm towards the transportalizer. You don't care where it takes you. You just want to be _away_.

Neither of them try to stop you.

Alone was better than anger, you think. Anger needs direction, needs victims. In the absence of knowing what's true, you find that anger directed back at you. Maybe if you were another Dave, one of the better ones out there, you might have managed to turn this around. Or if you'd had a different Karkat at the start of this session, or—

There were just so many possibilities, weren't there? Some Knight of Time you are, squandering all those potentials. You could go back, but Kanaya's right. It'll just make everything that much more messier, and it's futile anyway.

You are Dave Strider, and you've been doomed from the start.

Some time later—

(You've stopped keeping track, stopped counting, what's the point, knowing how long it is between failure and consequence?)

—Kayana finds you.

“I meant to ask if you're alright, but somehow I suspect I already know the answer.”

You're sitting in an empty lab room, equipment and broken glass scattered around. You picked a barren corner and have sat there, waiting, simmering, since. You don't answer her.

Kanaya sits next to you, facing the same direction but far enough away either of you would have to strain to reach each other. “There's running water here,” she says, “If you'd like to clean up. I could make you a new pair of clothes.”

Distantly, some part of you registers that a shower would be the best thing since smuppets—not smuppets, fuck smuppets, since sliced bread, or some shit, anything but smuppets—but the rest of you is busy wallowing or whatever.

Everyone's dead. It's your fault. It's Karkat's fault. It's—it's something. It's particularly cruel that a timeline that's already doomed was allowed to still create a new universe with you in it. You don't deserve to be punished, strung along like some teenage kid with a crush, only to be told everything you did was futile.

But that's the worst part, isn't it? What if it _wasn't_ futile, before you got your moronic little metaphorical claws into it? Maybe you can still make a difference. You're a Knight of Time, after all, so if anyone can turn this disaster on its head it should be you. You have all the future to bend to your will.

Then again, you've never won a thing in your life, not a fight against your Bro or a sympathetic look from John, so why would you expect to win _now_?

Kanaya clears her throat awkwardly. “Please... please don't hate him forever.”

You tilt your head to look at her. “Karkat?”

Kanaya scowls. “Well, I certainly wasn't talking about Gamzee.”

You stare at her blankly.

“That. That was a joke.”

“No, I got it.”

“Yes. Well. I'm not really better at conversing with you than I was with Rose, it seems. You both are so... complex.”

“Complex,” you echo.

Kanaya fiddles with the fabric of her skirt, smoothing it between her fingers. “I suppose I feel in part responsible for Karkat, now that we're moirails.”

“That's one of your weird romance things, right? So you're like... dating?”

Kanaya stifles a laugh. “Not quite.”

It's quiet for a moment. As you watch Kanaya, you realize she's glowing faintly, but before you can ask about it, she speaks.

“I should have stopped him from going god tier. I could tell it was a mistake.”

“You could?”

“I had a feeling, I guess,” she laughs, but its bitter. “Or maybe it's just that looking back now, I can see it all so much clearer. We weren't involved then, but I could tell something was up with him, but I was just so wrapped up in—”

Abruptly, she stops, fists clenched in her lap. The glow from under his skin disappears. “I apologize. This isn't what I came here to talk to you about.”

“Do all trolls glow?” you blurt.

Kanaya looks taken aback. “No. Only those of my blood caste.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, makes total sense. I'm on a meteor flying through space with a bunch of aliens, only one of which, probably, glows, and that's perfectly normal. Yeah. Okay.”

Kanaya quirks an eyebrow at you, and you forcibly but dutifully shut your damn mouth.

“Karkat is. Selfish.”

“No shit?” you deadpan before you can stop yourself.

“What I mean is that saving you was. Selfish of him.”

“What, so he could feel good about himself knowing he didn't cause the death of _everyone_ in my session, only _almost_ everyone?”

“Maybe,” Kanaya admits. “But I believe it's more than that. In every other timeline we've encountered in which you both are still able to contact each other, you're close.”

“Close? What's that mean?”

Kanaya fumbles for a moment. “Ah. Well. Um. Lovers, I suppose?”

“ _What_.”

“I must admit, I don't understand it. It's. You don't fit into his quadrants. Some timelines, some encounters, he tries to fit you into a corner, and it never seems to stick. Even though in this timeline, you've never really... Well, I think something from the other timelines got to Karkat. I personally suspect his aspect might contribute. He. He rescued you, I think, because he couldn't bear to lose you.”

For once in your fucking life, you are speechless.

“So don't be to hard on him, please? He already hates himself. I think it would ruin him to have you hate him, too. I don't think he'd ever convince himself to tell you this, but I thought it was important you know just how much you mean to him, though it's in a rather roundabout way.”

Kanaya rises, brushing off her skirt and not meeting your eyes. “And, really, we all have a reason to blame ourselves for this outcome. He says it's his fault, and at this point I think it safe to determine that his godhood does guarantee a doomed timeline, but time is such a tricky thing that I don't know if it's the only thing that set us on this path. Though you'd know better than me, Knight.”

“No,” you manage. “No, I don't know.”

Kanaya sighs. “Then I suppose we may never know. It's... hard not to blame yourself. All of us struggle with it. Except maybe Gamzee, unfortunately. He'd be much more tolerable if he wasn't so immune to the dread the rest of us are feeling.”

“Even Terezi blames herself?”

“Even Terezi.”

Something helpless and self-loathing shudders through you. You miss John. You miss his optimism. He would look around and find the light still in the world, even on a meteor fated to destruction.

You feel hopelessness sting against your throat like the tip of your brother's sword once did.

“I don't get it,” you finally say. “What's the point? There's nothing left. We're going to die. Why bother saving me? Why bother sending the meteor off? Why bother _trying_?”

“You were always going to die, Dave,” Kanaya says softly. “Eventually. Even a Lord of Time can't circumvent their own death eternally. One day, death comes for us all. Your purpose remains the same: find something worth living for until that day comes. I'll leave you be.”

She turns to go.

You are suddenly so, so afraid to be alone.

“Wait, Kanaya.”

“Yes?”

“Where's that shower you mentioned?”

“What's a shower?”

You both stare at each other. It takes a while to fumble your way towards understanding each other, but you feel a little bit better by the time Kanaya hands you a fresh pair of clothes and sends you off to the _ablution block_.

Terezi's ringing call of “ _INCOMING_ ” is all the warning you get. The dream bubble slips over the meteor before you can even scramble up to greet it. One moment, the world is grey and mechanical, and the next you're in a room that's achingly familiar.

It's not yours, but you recognize the ratty bunny sitting limp on the bed and the shitty movie posters because in your session, John's house is all that's left of him. You've spent more time in this room than you'd like to admit.

It's uncanny, how real it feels. Kanaya had warned you, given you the rundown or whatever—maybe she thought you'd freak out, and okay, maybe you would have, if you'd suddenly appeared in John's old room—but nothing really prepares you for seeing it in dream-reality. There was nothing she could have told you to prepare you for seeing your dead friends.

You're staring at one of John's posters, covered in scribbles from when he was a kid, and holding back tears, and then the door to his room opens, and you definitely do not scream.

“Dave?”

You weren't ready for this. You don't think you're ever going to be.

“Hi John,” you rasp.

Kanaya said that ghosts' eyes are white. This John's eyes are not white. They're still blue, and kind, and welcoming, and he doesn't hate you.

John gestures over his shoulder, looking confused. “I just left you on... Wait, what?”

“You're asleep,” you say, and somehow manage to keep the waver out of your voice. Someone should give you a goddamn award for that shit. That's some fucking god tier acting if you do say so yourself. Take your picture and slap you on John's walls with the best of 'em.

John's brow furrows. “That's what I thought.”

“I'm not your Dave,” you say.

More confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I'm from another timeline. We're on a meteor. Passing through dream bubbles while you dream in them, I guess.”

“Oh, well that explains it!” John chirps. “Well, feel free to hang out for as long as you'd like!”

“Sure,” you say.

And then you stand there. Just. Looking at him. He can't tell, through your shades, but even so you can't bring yourself to try and make it less awkward. Something about watching your friends leave and die makes you less afraid to admit you miss them.

You miss John. So much, and it's only been a week alone on a meteor, but it's been a lifetime in stolen moments, wishing you had more time with him, because time's your bitch and it waits for no one but you. You know exactly how long you spent sitting in his room on LOWAS, but its a number you don't want to remind yourself of.

“So what's with the meteor thing?” John asks after a moment.

You hesitate just long enough for John to add, “Oh! Wait, is that spoilers? Should we not cross-contaminate our timelines or something?”

“I don't think that's going to be an issue on my end,” you say. “My timeline is doomed.”

“Oh,” John says. “What happened?”

“Everything went to shit, basically,” you say. “Rose and Jade are dead, and you—left. And then the trolls, or whatever is left of their session, picked me up, sent the meteor they were on flying into the void, and here we are. Just dream surfing, or whatever, call me a California boy because I'm riding the waves and a shitty broken research lab is my board.”

John's eyes go wide while you talk. And then he laughs, a carefree little giggle that sets your heart racing pitifully in your chest. “You don't change across timelines, do you?”

Unbidden, you blurt, “Neither do you.”

“You've met the trolls?” John asks.

“You haven't?”

“Nope! They've been bothering us for a while, though. According to Karkat's conversations with me, we're pretty close to going linear again instead of backwards on his end, so I hope we'll get to see them soon.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” you says. “They're. Interesting? I've only met a few of them. Kanaya says there used to be twelve, in their session, but a lot of them died in their boss fight.”

“Oh,” John sighs out. “That's sad.”

You shrug. Of the deaths haunting your conscience, the trolls are low priority. “Doomed timeline means everyone dies.”

“Wait, does that mean you're dead?”

“Not yet.”

John looks stricken. “But you will?”

“Yeah, eventually,” you say.

“That's so unfair,” John says, and your heart constricts. He doesn't change. He's still got that reckless sense of heroism, of what's right in the world.

It's exactly why he's the leader, and isn't that a terribly wistful thought.

“It is,” you agree, “But the fuck-ups have to go somewhere.”

“Why don't you stay here?” John offers, because of course he would.

You want that more than anything. But. “I don't think it works that way. I think even if you move timelines, you're still doomed.”

“Well, shit,” John says. “How do you know you're doomed?”

You shake your head. “Our session is unwinnable.”

“The trolls said that about ours, too!” John protests, “But I don't think that's true. There has to be something you can do.”

You almost laugh. You feel the bitter taste of it in your throat. “No. It's... The trolls have been going through dream bubbles before I came around. They've confirmed our timeline's fucked by comparing to others.”

You watch John's hands curl into fists. “That's so messed up, though!”

“Yeah. But we can't do anything.”

John stares at the floor, looking angry. You have to remind yourself he's not mad at you.

“Don't worry about it,” you choke out.

John takes a deep breath. “I'm sorry. It just sucks. Oh, god, I'm being such a terrible dream-host, aren't I? You're here, and I've just been pestering you with stupid questions and getting mad when you answer. I'm sorry!”

Your laughter is almost startled out of you. “You can ask me whatever you want.”

“Oh, okay,” John says, “Wait, let me think of a good one that's not sad... Oh, did I give you those glasses in your timeline, too?”

You nod. “'Course, Egbert. We're still—we were best friends. I bet that's true for every timeline. The bestest of bros. Bonnie and Clyde, all that shit. I can't believe I'm saying this out loud. Being doomed makes me sappy, whatd'ya know. Ain't that some shit. Dave Strider, sappy? Only in the fuckiest of timelines.”

John laughs. “I think I'd have to really twist your—his—arm to get my Dave to admit that. Can you trade spots? Alternate timeline Daves are much nicer than mine!”

“You don't want me in your timeline,” you warn.

“Oh, man, I made it sad again, didn't I?”

The sound of glass breaking makes both you and John flinch. You whirl towards the window, sword in hand in a flash.

But it's not an enemy. Technically. It's just Karkat, tumbling through the broken window into John's room and snagging his cape on the windowsill. He cusses furiously as he staggers up, trying to yank his cape free with vicious tugs.

John lets out an exclamation of surprise and possible excitement. You, meanwhile, sigh, and reluctantly unequip your weapon.

“The shit I do for you is uncanny, Strider,” Karkat is saying, “Do you know how hard it is to track your useless mopey self through dream bubbles, much less timelines? Just because I'm the only one left who actually _can_ track you down doesn't mean you have to make it a constant fucking challenge. I was just going to let you suffer out here, fresh meat on the first-time dream bubble experience, but Kanaya was all, _oh but what if he gets lost or hurt_ or some shit, and you better be damn grateful my moirail likes you—”

“Karkat, I'm guessing?” John interrupts.

Karkat spins around, comically off-balance because his cape's still stuck to the window, and lets out a yelp. His voice cracks when he screeches, “John!”

“Ding ding, point for Egbert,” you deadpan. “What do you want, Karkat?”

But Karkat doesn't answer. His mouth hangs open, less comically shocked and more surprised and heartbroken, and that expression alone makes you almost pity him enough to go free his cape from the window. Almost.

Instead, you say, “Did I miss the memo, or something? Was there some heartfelt John and Karkat reunion manifesto I was supposed to receive before attending any nerd bedroom rendezvous? Should I have packed the balloons when you kidnapped me off my planet—wait, why's Kanaya all concerned about me, anyway, the fuck, I'm fine on my own. I didn't survive a dead session on luck and bullshit, jesus christ, at least give me a little credit—”

“Shut up,” Karkat finally snaps. “No matter what timeline it is, I only seem to get you to shut the fuck up by shoving something in your mouth, for fuck's sake.”

You quirk a brow. “Is that something your into—”

“Don't even start,” Karkat hisses at you. His glare levels into the approximation of a sneer. “I meant exactly what I said.”

Kanaya's words, describing you and Karkat, in every iteration: _close... lovers_.

Completely surprising everyone in the room, including yourself, you shut up.

“So you _are_ Karkat, right?” John says in the silence you leave behind.

“Yes,” Karkat says.

“Huh,” John says. “You're different that I expected.”

Karkat glances sideways at you suspiciously, as if you were somehow at fault for John's first impression of him. “Different how?”

“Uh, quieter, I guess? At least a little! I though you'd constantly be yelling, but instead you have just a sort of loud voice? That makes way more sense though! I can't imagine how bad it'd be for your throat if you were yelling all the time.”

“I—yes,” Karkat says. “Your version of me is probably much closer to what you expect. He's... luckier, than I am. Less fucked. Probably angrier. Mostly at you.”

“At me?” John squeaks. “Because of Jack?”

“Yes,” Karkat says. “Because of Jack. And because there's less of his own actions to be mad at.” Karkat groans. “It's complicated.”

John's mouth quirks into a smile. “What, is there only so much anger contained in one little Karkat body? Like it's a limited resource? That's a shitty version of a mana pool.”

“A what—” Karkat starts, then stops. Then starts again, “Whatever. Yeah, think of it that way if it helps. Though don't push your luck on trying to make him run out of anger by giving him things to be pissed about. It's finite, but only barely.”

John's smile shifts to an all-out grin. “Noted. You're definitely nicer than him, though. He would have been screaming about how terrible his other selves are. He'd probably hate you.”

“I'm sure he would,” Karkat says. “Try not to be too hard on him. He doesn't know. A lot of things.”

“I'll only screw with him a little bit,” John promises. “I can't help it. He's really such—”

John disappears.

You instinctively lunge towards the space he used to occupy, but instead of reaching for John, you're just flinging yourself towards an empty container in the meteor lab. Karkat snags your wrist to keep you from falling flat on your face.

You shake him off, and his claw scrape across your skin.

“Shit,” Karkat hisses, “Sorry.”

You hold your hand to your chest. The pain registers dully. It's not the bite of a sword, you know that much, and really it only stings like a papercut. Blood wells up in tiny dots on your wrist, but not enough to warrant bandages.

You drop your wrist, looking at Karkat. “What was that?”

He probably can't see the intent in your gaze, but he must hear it in your voice, or something, because he goes defensive.

“What was what? I said I was sorry. I was just saving you from smearing your face across the floor. A thank you is in order.”

“Thanks,” you deadpan. “What was that, with John?”

You feel a little bit like a parent whose caught their kid sneaking in from a night out past curfew.

Karkat scowls at you. “Nothing.”

“Yeah, totally. You freaked the hell out when you saw him.”

“I wasn't expecting to see him,” Karkat says.

You wait.

Karkat tilts his chin up, trying to look down his nose at you and only barely succeeding. “I don't want to talk about this.”

“Bullshit. You love hearing yourself spew idiocy as much as I do. We're both fountains of absolute horse shit. It's brown all over the place—the sidewalks, the trees, clogged in the pipes, _definitely_ on the fan, with that fiasco I just saw.”

Karkat growls. “I said I'm not talking about it.”

“Whatever,” you say, finally. “I don't care. Keep yourself pent up like a volcano about to blow or whatever, just make sure you far away from me when you start vomiting drama lava.”

“Just shut up, please,” Karkat grumbles. He scrubs a hand over his face. “When was the last time you ate anything?”

Oh, he turns the tables far quicker than you'd like. “None of your business,” you snap.

“Dave,” Karkat growls. “You need to—”

You flashstep out of there so fucking fast.

“Hey coolkid, you smell extra despondent today.”

You throw a scrap of metal at Terezi. “Fuck you, I smell just as despondent as I did yesterday, thank you very much.”

“Uh-huh. So nothing happened with Karkackles?”

“The fuck? No.”

“Why's he moping then?”

“Why would I know?”

“So nothing happened?”

Terezi sits next to you on the ground. You're busy trying to scrap together some broken shit in the labs into literally anything more interesting than what it currently is: a pile of crap. Who knows, maybe you'll make a town out of cans or—nah, that's stupid.

You shrug one shoulder as she starts fiddling with your half-assed project. “We saw an alternate timeline John yesterday. That's all I got.”

“Suspicious,” Terezi announces. She picks up a piece of metal. “What's this supposed to be?”

You groan. “I don't know. I'm just. Bored. And despondent. So despondent. This place sucks.”

“It sucks so hard,” Terezi agrees. “You haven't lost your mad art skills, right?”

“Uh, no.”

Terezi stands. When you squint up at her, she just huffs and bodily drags you up, too. Jesus, trolls are strong as fuck. She hauls your ass off the ground like you're nothing.

“Come on, coolkid, lets go draw some shit. Never thought you'd lose the ability to have fun, but here we are. Don't worry, as your doctor, I diagnose you with Sad, and the cure is drawing stupid comics with your awesome troll friend.”

“Okay, fine, just don't rip my arm off.”

Terezi smiles that sharp grin at you, and you maybe manage a smile back at her.

Against all odds, _Dave: have some fun_.

You don't mean to interrupt. It's just—late, and you're hungry, and you were on your way to alchemize some food or at least an approximation of food, and—

“I've got you,” murmured soft and soothing. Kanaya's voice.

There's no response, but your curiosity gets the better of you. You poke your head in the doorway. The fluorescents are off, the room instead lit by a single candle on the side table next to the couch.

Kanaya is curled against the armrest, with Karkat squished into her lap. He's buried his head against her collarbone, shoulders hunched against the rest of the room. He's shaking.

“I'm here, Karkat,” Kanaya continues to rasp against the curve of one nubby horn. “I've got you. You're okay. Shh.”

You watch as Kanaya's hands smooth over Karkat's back, rhythmic and soothing.

“I—” Karkat starts, and chokes on the sound.

“Shoosh,” Kanaya says. “Stop blaming yourself. You did what you could. I've got you.”

Her hands start at the top of his shoulders, curling over the tense hunch of his body, sweeping down until she reaches his hips. Then up again. Soft and sure and repetitive.

It occurs to you that maybe you shouldn't be here. You know Karkat and Kanaya are moirails, and that's some actual romance shit or something. This is between them. You turn to slip away, a second away from flashstepping to ensure your escape, but...

“You saved him,” Kanaya is saying, “You got him out. You did something _good_ , Karkat. You don't have to save everyone. You don't have to save them all.”

Karkat takes in a shuddering breath so harshly that you hear it from where you stand. Is Kanaya talking about you?

“But—”

“No,” Kanaya interrupts gently. Her palms skim up, up, past Karkat's shoulders, to rest on his cheeks and drag his face out from her chest so that he meets her gaze. “You did your best. You saved Dave, and if there were others in your power to save, you would run yourself into the ground helping as many as you could. But there is nothing you can do except grieve. I will let your mourn, but I will _not_ let you hate yourself for that which is out of your control, do you understand?”

Karkat lets out a low whine. “Y...yeah.”

Kanaya tilts Karkat's head and presses a kiss to his forehead. Maybe it's time you check the fuck out. Yeah. Definitely. You're outstayed your welcome that was never welcome in the first place, because you really shouldn't be watching this and oh shit Kanaya's looking right at you.

You stand, caught, like a deer in the headlights.

She blinks, surprise coloring her expression, but she doesn't react. Instead, she lets Karkat fall against her again, head on her shoulder. Her hands go back to soothing over back.

She looks right you and very deliberately says, “I'm sure Dave will come to realize what he means to you in time.”

Silent as the grave, you turn away from the doorway and go back the way you came. In true Strider fashion, you pretend everything is fucking fine.

When you wake up, you're on LOHAC. Dream bubble, then.

In the distance, you hear the rapid chatter of a bunch of crocodiles in obvious commotion. You make your way towards the cacophony of _naks_. As usual, by the time you get anywhere on LOHAC, you're sweating.

There's a circle of excitable nakodiles swarming someone in blue. As you approach, two things become very apparent.

The person in blue is John.

He is holding your dead body.

Based on your knowledge of dream bubbles (though admittedly minimal), that doesn't make any fucking sense.

“John?” you call.

John whirls, and suddenly the scene around you both shifts drastically. You think you're on LOWAS, but not a part you've seen. You and John stand in a clearing of pipes, obscuring your vision in all directions except up. The sky, meanwhile, is filled with fireflies instead of clouds. What looks to be a pipe organ sits on one side of the clearing. You're so fucking confused right now.

Very tentatively, John whispers, “ _Dave_?”

“Not yours,” you say quickly, because you have a feeling a dead Dave suddenly being not dead is probably a very jarring thing. “Not your timeline. You're dreaming, I think, and I'm on a meteor passing through a dream bubble.”

“I see,” says John. “That explains it.”

“So, I, uh, died in this one, huh?”

John gives you a long look, just on the edge of pained. You try not to flinch under his gaze. You were never afraid of him before, but now you feel like you're walking on eggshells.

Finally, John answers. “You died protecting me from Jack Noir. Without you, we couldn't Scratch our session.”

A doomed session, then. Like yours.

“What about the others?” you ask, because you can't help yourself.

John's expression shutters into heartbreak. He closes his eyes. “Dead.”

“For me, too,” you manage. “I mean—my session. Doomed timeline buddies. I'm the only one left, other than a few of the trolls.”

John's eyes flicker open. “I think the trolls in my session were planning to send their meteor into the Furthest Ring, but Jack got to them first. After he—after he killed everyone—he disappeared. I've been... alone.”

You feel you chest tighten in sympathy. You don't especially like the trolls, as a collective, and you're still on pretty bad terms with Karkat, but at least you're not literally the only one left. Not anymore.

Maybe Karkat did save you, after all.

John looks so, so sad.

“Can...” John starts. He swallows. “Can I do something silly?”

You watch the way he picks aimlessly at the sleeve of his god tier hoodie.

“What's stopping you?” you say.

You're not quite prepared for it, but one moment John's across the clearing, and the next he's in front of you. Wind swirls around you both, carrying the end his hood on the breeze, and you have no idea what just happened, and its not over yet, either, because John just steps close and hugs you hard enough to crush the air out of your lungs.

Oh god, you weren't ready for this, but _oh, god_ , you've wanted nothing more in your entire fucking life. You reach up and hug him back, no awkward bro-hugs here, no, you've got your arms tucked around his waist, palms flat on his back.

In the back of your mind, you remember the moment that you Shouldn't Have Seen between Kanaya and Karkat, and maybe trolls have something right: that the feeling of warmth, of comfort, of being _alive_ , under your hands is a type of love, too.

John clutches at you, hands twisted in your shirt where his arms twine over your shoulders, keeping you close. He buries his face against the side of your head, like he's breathing you in, and rasps, “I miss you so much.”

“Me too,” you croak out. “God, I'm so sorry, John.”

You both seem to have forgotten that you're not the people you actually want to say these words to, but it doesn't matter. It's still you. It's still John.

“Don't apologize,” John says, “It's not your fault. God, I screwed things up between us, so much, Dave, I...”

“Me too—it's okay, it's—John. _John_.”

You can feel the moment he starts crying, because you're pressed against his chest and you can hear the way his breath rattles through him like its trying to break him from the inside out. You wonder if he feels as hollow as you do. You wonder if he blames himself, just as much.

There's no escaping the guilt, really, but maybe there's reprieve, for a moment.

“It's okay, John,” you say, “Whatever happened, it's okay. You're okay.”

John's arms tighten impossibly around you, and he lets out a sob. It hitches through his body, and shakes you both, right to the ground, and you're still clinging to each other as you end up kneeling on the floor.

You don't cry, but your eyes burn, so you squeeze them shut and burrow yourself as much inside of John as you possibly can, like you might make yourself a home inside his chest, and stay there rather than the reality of your own timeline. Your lungs constrict around dry sobs, and each one feels like a bulldozer trying to break through your ribcage.

“I'm sorry,” John croaks against your temple. “I-I fucked up, Dave. I wasn't r-ready, and I just—now you're. Gone. Just gone. I—”

You smooth your hands across his shoulder blades, bunching up the fabric of his hoodie under your fingers. You don't have Kanaya's grace, and that's okay, because things are already so fucked up anyway, so what do a few wrinkles matter at this point.

“I've got you,” you whisper. “I'm—” _not going anywhere_ , but you can't promise that, can you? “—I'm here, John.”

You feel John take a deep breath, staggered but grounding. He turns his head, and your glasses clink together, but he just sniffles and nudges his forehead against your temple anyway. You try not to think about how intimate this gesture is. You try not to think about how much you've longed for it, and instead you wait for John to catch his breath. You savor this moment, because you know its fleeting.

You're almost tempted to freeze time, but things like this don't feel the same. You don't get to extend a moment into infinity, no matter how powerful your control over your aspect. When the clocks stop, you don't feel warmth, or comfort, or satisfaction, or—anything much, really. It's just you, and your thoughts, and you're still in the world but its like you've taken a step back from it, controlling your body as an outside force.

It's just not the same.

Perhaps it's destined, that heroes of Time value it the most. You certainly wished you'd had more of it before everything went to hell.

“Can...” John murmurs, “Can I do something stupid, too?”

Your voice comes out hoarse when you answer, “What's stopping you?”

“You did this to me once, and I kind of freaked out,” John admits in a ghost of breath. “But you're not you. Not him. Not my Dave.”

“It's okay,” you say. “Just pretend I am. Just for a little.”

John pulls back just enough to peer at you through his glasses. You wonder if, this close, he can see through your shades.

John leans in again, and even though you see it coming, you are not at all prepared for him to kiss you. But you're Dave Strider, and you will not leave a boy unkissed when he makes advances towards you, so you move your lips against his even as your glasses smoosh against each other and you let out a breathless little huff through your nose.

One of his hands slides up your back to land in your hair, and you put your hands on his cheeks, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones because you want to memorize this moment.

If you don't think too hard about it, you can pretend it's a do-over. If you ignore the wet tear tracks under your fingers, and the ache in your chest for your dead friends, and the desperation clawing through you to do anything and everything to save this boy—if you ignore all that, you can delude yourself into imagining this is what it's like to kiss John for the first time, tentative and affectionate all at once.

You almost pull away to tell him. Between kisses, you almost say, _when I kissed you, you ran, why did you run? why did you leave? you left me, you left me alone, John_ , but instead you press your lips more insistently against his and you don't say anything at all.

You don't say anything at all for a long time, really.

You spend hours there, trading kisses and wishing everything was different. You spend hours in John's arms, but you're both doomed, and you both know how foolish this is. Still, you spend hours, trying to write each other into memory, as if that will make it real.

Does it matter, which John was yours and which was not, when yours abandoned you, and this one is in your arms, holding you close? Isn't this John so much more _yours_ than the one from your timeline?

You kiss his lips, his jaw, his neck—take off his glasses and kiss the dried tracks his tears left behind—and he sucks a bruise into your neck in turn.

You're about to return the favor when he disappears.

The dream bubble has passed. You're alone again, sitting in your room on the meteor, hands still outstretched for a boy who is no longer yours.

The mark on your neck fades after a couple of days. You notice Karkat's gaze on it—on you—any time you see him until it disappears. After that, when he looks at you, he turns away like he doesn't want to be caught.

You're left with nothing but memory, and you hope its enough.

Times passes in fits and starts. At least, it feels like it. Minutes crawl over your skin like ants, and time, once a comfort to you, becomes a prison. You think it might have something to do with the weird space-time bullshit going on in the Furthest Ring. You also think it might have something to do with being trapped on a meteor, seeing the same faces everyday, with nothing but hopelessness to keep you company.

The dream bubbles are in equal parts reprieve and torture. Sometimes you see the faces of your dead friends and their progress, their determination, wraps you up like a blanket. Sometimes you see the faces of your dead friends, eyes white and soulless, and the touch of your mistakes, in every timeline, chills you to the bone.

You've just come out of a dream bubble where the only ones left were you and Rose. You find it difficult to talk to your other selves: anything interesting they might have to say, you pretty much already know, and you know it hurts to relive your mistakes, so there's usually not much worth talking about. Besides, that particular instant of you was planning on going back in time to fix shit, and you think that just maybe, he might have a chance still.

When you come out of the bubble, you're alone in your room again. You settle on your bed, slip your headphones on, and decide you'd rather not think about anything for a while. Somehow, through a very specific technique of tangling yourself in your blankets so that you can't move, you manage to convince your brain to chill the fuck out for once.

At least until something touches your leg.

You definitely don't scream. You do not flail in an attempt to free yourself from your blankets, but you do perform a slick move of whipping your head around so fast that it knocks your headphones off so you can hear what your attacker wants.

“Fuck,” Karkat says.

“Jesus hell,” you wheeze, “you scared the piss out of me, it's fucking every—”

“Don't start,” Karkat tells you. He fidgets, looking away. “I need a favor.”

You squirm in your blanket burrito so that you can turn to look at him better. “What?”

“Can I...” he interrupts himself, groaning. “This is stupid. I'm stupid. Fuck. Can I sit here with you?”

“The fuck?”

“I...” he pulls in a shaky breath. You watch as he hugs himself, fingers digging into his own biceps. You come to the realization that something's wrong. “Normally, I'd go to Kanaya, but she's kinda fucked up over seeing Rose right now, and... look, I just—I need—someone—”

“You want me to cuddle you?” you blurt before you can stop yourself, because you weren't supposed to know about Karkat's kinky moirail cuddles.

“What?” Karkat squawks. “What? No. I just—keep your hands to yourself, Strider.”

He's blushing.

“Whatever, dude, your loss,” you say, miraculously managing not to push it and simultaneously not out yourself as some sort of weird voyeur for kink moirail cuddles. Yeah, the fact you stuck around to watch is definitely worse than Karkat and Kanaya getting all snuggly up in this bitch in the first place.

You struggle to free one of your arms from your blanket cocoon and pat the bed.

Karkat settles himself at the foot of the bed, leaning against the wall, and you have to strain your neck to keep your eye on him. He pulls his knees to his chest, hugging his legs, and curls up like he's trying to make himself as small and inconsequential as possible.

“You can hang under one condition,” you start.

Karkat's head pops up. He looks at you suspiciously.

“You gotta tell me what's up with you.”

You squirm again until you can wriggle out of your blanket enough to sit up and actually see Karkat properly.

“What's... up with me?” he echoes.

“Yeah, what's with all this shit with John, and me, and timelines, or whatever the fuck?”

Karkat's jaw works, and he looks away from you. You think he's actually contemplating leaving, and maybe this is a really shitty position to put him in when he's already feeling vulnerable or whatever, but you're kind of fed up with his shit. You've been fed up with it from the start.

Karkat curls in on himself a little more, but he grumbles out a, “Fine.”

You wait.

He sighs.

“It's. Timelines where I reach god tier are rare. Because it's not supposed to happen.”

“Yeah, I know that part.”

“You asked, so don't fucking interrupt.”

“Jeeze, touchy, okay.”

Karkat growls. You hold your palms up, placating, and then mime zipping your lips shut.

“A realized Knight of Blood's powers allow me to instantly appear near someone I'm... This is fucking weird. Close to. Or whatever. Someone who's important to me.”

You can't help the chuckle. “Like a knight in shining armor. Shining pajamas.”

“Shut up,” Karkat snarls.

“That's how you brought me to the meteor, right? Wait, so you're like, into me?”

Karkat scrubs his hands over his face with a groan. “It's. Not like that. Maybe like that. I don't know. There's more. Blood is like, relationships, right? I can feel. Things. Stuff my other selves feel. Across timelines.”

“What, like, you get it on in one timeline, you feel it in this one?”

“No!” Karkat squeaks. He's bright red. “You're making this terrible. I knew you'd make this terrible. Why did I agree to this?”

He shifts as if he's about to leave, and you scramble for him, dragging him back down to the bed. “You can't leave now! This is the juicy part!”

Karkat throws you off with ease and a growl, and you get a scratch over your shoulder for your trouble, but he settles back down.

“Fine!” he huffs. He glares at you. “In every timeline that lasts past your session, I'm in love with you and John. Every version of me out there that's stupid flushed, or, ugh, whatever it is, because it's more than that—I feel what he feels, for you and John.”

Karkat curls back up again. He sniffles.

“And every time one of me loses one of you, I feel his loss.”

“Holy shit,” you whisper. “Holy fuck. What the fuck?”

“Yeah, laugh it up.”

You don't laugh.

“That's... why you brought me here?”

“Yeah,” he says, uncharacteristically quiet. “Well, I thought you might be a little more appreciative of being saved from certain imminent doom when Skaia blew up, but what do I know. I should have known you would be a piece of shit about it no matter what. You're always a shit.”

“The shittiest,” you say, and before you can continue, Karkat hits your leg.

You convince your brain to redirect. “That's really heavy. Dealing with that.”

“You don't say,” Karkat deadpans.

“Okay, prepare yourself, one full service Strider hug coming right the fuck up,” you say, and then you practically drop your entire body weight on top of Karkat.

“Fuck off,” Karkat snaps, but you get your arms over his shoulders even as you both tumble into a heap on the bed.

Karkat's hanging half off the mattress by the time you both stop squirming, and you've latched yourself onto his side.

“What the fuck,” Karkat says.

“Just deal with it.”

“I thought you hated me.”

You pull back a little and drag Karkat back into the bed. “Yeah, I dunno. I'm mad at you, but I'm also mad at myself, and I have to spend all day with that fucker, so like, it can't be all bad with you, right?”

Karkat looks at you. He opens his mouth, but no words come out. Instead, he curls toward you, and somehow you actually do end up cuddling with Karkat, because he twines himself into your space like one of those twenty-foot boa constrictors.

When his breath hitches hard in his chest, you think you might be very out of your depth. Unfortunately (fortunately? Ugh, why do things have to work out in the end like this, it's so _weird_ ) you have a moirail voyeur fetish, so you actually know exactly what to do.

You skim your hands over Karkat's back, trying to find the correct pressure to apply. Too much gets into massage territory, but maybe that's what you're going for? But troll skin is thicker than human, you know, so maybe you should be a little more aggressive with it. Damn. You should have asked Kanaya for a _tips and tricks_ guide.

Mid-stroke, your fingers brush against something paper-thin and twitching under Karkat's cape. “What the _fuck_.”

You feel the _something_ up, tracing it out with your fingers. “Do you have tiny wings?”

Karkat snorts into your shoulder. His voice is rough, but he manages to counter, “Is. Is _that_ really your biggest concern right now?”

“Well, yeah, I mean I've seen you lose your shit before, but the wings, those are new, what the hell, they're like little dragonfly wings, that's so cool, do they even _do_ anything?”

Karkat retreats from you enough to squint at you.

You realize your mistake. “Oh, shit.”

“Dave,” Karkat warns.

“Okay, so listen, I swear it's not some fetish thing or whatever—” Karkat makes a choking noise. “—and it was just once, cause I was trying to raid the metaphorical fridge at three in the morning, but we don't have a fridge and we don't have mornings, but—”

“ _Dave_ ,” Karkat croaks.

“I saw you and Kanaya on the couch once, and let me tell you, she has that shit on lockdown, I don't know how she does it—”

“Dave, stop talking.” Karkat seems to breathe a sigh of relief when you go abruptly quiet, even though he's red down his neck. “How do you manage to make everything you say sound so much worse than it already is?”

“Unbridled talent.”

“Okay, so that's... definitely awkward, and I don't know what Kanaya would do if she knew—”

“Oh, she saw me.”

“She did?”

“Yeah. Direct eye-contact and thinly-veiled threats and all.”

“Okay, that's. Hm. But it's not. The worst. Don't do it again. It's creepy. And rude. It's like...”

“I don't need a comparison,” you say, “Trust me, I know exactly how weird and intrusive it is already.”

Karkat sighs, and with it he seems to deflate, like he's sinking further into the mattress. “This has been a disaster of a conversation. This has been a disaster in general.”

“What'd you come in here for in the first place?”

Karkat closes his eyes. “I felt... A John die.”

“Shit,” you breathe. “Shit, I—”

Karkat sniffles, and he bites his lip, and you realize, through your own suddenly blurry vision, that he's trying very hard not to cry. Right, mutant blood, culling, all of that—

He's the only one who gets it, you realize. He's the only one on this near-empty rock that feels the loss of John Egbert like a sword through the chest, right between the ribs and out the other side. And, like you, he feels that pain, fresh, over and over again. You think, for maybe the first time, that you understand Karkat.

He's shaking again, and you pull him closer, letting him hide his face against your chest and clutch at you. You're not Kanaya. You can't manage the words, especially not when you're crying, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of missing your best friend, the boy you've been in love with for years.

But Karkat's there, in your arms, and you stroke your hands down his back, legs tangled together, and he _gets_ it. Together, you mourn, and you're pretty sure that the pressure of your fingers against his shoulders is perfect.

After the first time, you and Karkat fall into something dangerously close to routine.

It's usually him that initiates, because despite being aloof and loud, you know that Karkat needs people, even if he'll never admit it. It's the same reason that he nestled himself in his group of troll friends, despite the constant threat of being killed if they got close enough to him to learn his blood color.

He's just not built for isolation.

You've come to find you don't mind him in your space. You're used to being alone, but your friends were always a pesterchum message away, so you're not entirely upset about Karkat suddenly being constantly nearby.

You listen to music, maybe sometimes mix something if the inspiration strikes, and Karkat curls up in a corner of your room on a pile of blankets he'd dragged in and reads.

Sometimes, sometimes, you convince him to read a bit to you. This always includes a long-winded tirade about how you should just read it yourself if you're going to interrupt in the middle, followed by a Karkat Branded synopsis of what you missed before he picks up reading aloud where he left off.

He's mid-sentence when you interrupt, “I don't get why you read romance all the time.”

Karkat glares. “Excuse me, this is high literature, thank you very much. Quadrant analysis and intuition is vital for every troll.”

“Yeah, but don't you have enough of it? Romance, I mean. With the god tier stuff?”

The glare that's pinching Karkat's eyebrows into an angry slant smooths into something thoughtful. “Maybe, but...” he raises the book up. “These always end happy. Me—us—don't usually get that chance.”

“Whoa, oops, didn't mean to get into Depression Karkat territory. I'm gonna pull a Terezi and order no Sads in the courtroom. Go back to reading.”

Karkat makes a face. “You weren't even paying attention.”

“I was totally paying attention! The blueblood was totally about to get some sexy rustblood blackrom dick or something.”

Karkat runs his gaze over you, appraising. Maybe a little impressed.

“I know it's hard to believe, probably because every time you look at me you get distracted by my dashing good looks, but I am actually listening. Surprise, surprise, your trashy quadrant romance books are better than thinking about the inevitability of fate or death or the weird horrorterror that I keep seeing whenever I close my eyes, seriously, what's with that, there's so many arms, way too many arms, who needs that many?”

“What about your music? Better than your music?” Karkat taunts.

“Oh, fuck no,” you say immediately, “My beats are so lit, they're flaming blue or some other color that means its super hot, but I have to deign the adoring public with my presence sometimes, you know, and your voice is really nice.”

That last part slips out without your permission. Oops.

Karkat, of course, catches it. His lips twitch into a smile. “You like my voice?”

“No, what, who said that? Noooo—”

“You said it. Too late. I heard it.”

“No, I'm pretty sure that's the horrorterrors screaming at you, can't you hear them? They're so loud, going absolutely hog wild, it's an amateur screamo band practice out there.”

“Your metaphors are improving but your excuses are not,” Karkat deadpans.

“Excuses? What excuses? I—”

“Forget I called you out,” Karkat says, rolling his eyes. “Sometimes I forget you're allergic to admitting you like people.”

“Whoa, whoa, who said anything about liking you?” You physically cannot stop the nervous chuckle that bubbles out of you. Unfortunate. “I didn't say anything about liking you, whaaat, I haven't said anything about you at all, even, just that you're super gross and into trashy romance novels.”

“Dave, Dave, please. Dave, just do us both a favor, and let me do the talking for the next hour, so that you spare me from all the absolute flaming idiocy that spills out of you, and I can keep reading, and you can you just enjoy my voice and definitely not admit it to me, okay?”

Cheeks warm, you nod.

“Are you two decent?” you hear Terezi ask, and neither you nor Karkat have the chance to answer before she's spilling out of one of the vents in your room.

What the fuck.

Karkat yelps. “What the hell!”

“Gamzee fell asleep blocking the opposite way, and I couldn't crawl around him in time,” Terezi says.

Karkat crinkles his nose. “You smell terrible.”

“I smell great,” Terezi counters, “Like blackrom and bad decisions.”

“You're dating Gamzee?” you ask, incredulous.

Terezi's face scrunches up like you've just slapped her in the face with the scent of overwhelming sour apple. “Ew, gross, no.”

“I don't want to hear about your quadrants, Terezi, what's going on?”

“Funny,” Terezi muses, “You used to be so interested in my quadrants before you went god tier.” She grins and sniffs in your direction. “Wonder what happened.”

“Terezi,” Karkat growls.

Terezi sighs. “You're no fun. Anyway, there's a dream bubble on the way.”

“So not the important part of this conversation,” you say. “You're bumping uglies with Gamzee?”

Terezi shrugs. “I can't say I'm proud of it.”

Karkat sneers at you from his blanket nest in the corner. “I thought you said you were paying attention when I was reading.”

“I was! I do!”

“Oh?” sniggers Terezi.

“If you really were paying attention, you'd know by now that dating isn't big in troll society. Long-term partners are common, but quadrant vacillation makes it hard to really define when you're dating someone.”

You cross your arms. “In my defense, quadrants are confusing as shit.”

“You just don't appreciate the nuance of troll romance.”

“Nerd talk, I'm out,” Terezi announces and waltzes out of your room.

But then it's not your room, anymore. Where ever you are, it's pitch black, but you can hear the faint whirring of machinery in the distance. Still on the meteor, maybe?

Suddenly, Karkat's at your shoulder, and all the air hisses out of you when he suddenly brushes against your arm like some sort of shadow monster.

“Sorry,” he whispers.

“Can you see?” you ask.

“Ssh,” Karkat says.

There's a sleepy murmur from somewhere in the room—Jesus, you can't see _anything_ , okay maybe wearing sunglasses inside all the time does occasionally backfire, but sue you, they're cool, and John gave them to you.

“Dave?” mumbles a familiar voice. “That you?”

“Yeah,” you say.

Beside you, there's a slapping noise that sounds suspiciously like Karkat facepalming.

“What time is it?” asks John's voice from somewhere in the dark.

“Fuck if I know,” you say. Dream bubble time is weird. You have no idea where the starting point is, though you're aware you've been here for exactly one minute and six seconds.

“Are you okay?” John asks. He sounds a little more awake. “Are you sick? You always know what time it is.”

Another slapping sound near you shoulder.

Karkat groans. “This is horrifying to watch. John, you're still asleep. You're dreaming.”

He disappears from your side, and a moment later the room floods with light.

John's sitting on the edge of his bed, rubbing his eyes against the sudden brightness, his blankets shoved in a messy pile on the mattress behind him. Through a yawn, he murmurs, “Dreaming?”

“Dream bubble,” you say, “We—”

And then you stop. The words die on your tongue. Because John opens his eyes, and there's nothing but white.

“You what?” John asks.

Karkat makes his way over to you and brushes his shoulder against yours as he replies. “We're on a meteor passing through dream bubbles in the furthest ring. Sometimes we intersect with the afterlife.”

“Oh, fun,” John says, leaning back on his palms. “I did that for a while, before I died. You learn a lot from other timelines! What's going on in yours?”

Karkat shakes his head. “We're doomed. Delaying the inevitable.”

“The inevitable isn't so bad,” John says with a smile. “I suspect being a ghost can't last forever, but it does have its perks. It feels like you have all the time in the universe, at least.”

You can't tear your gaze away from his face. It's John, it's _John_ , but he's dead, and something about that sits heavy and painful in your gut like a kidney stone, and you can't stop looking at his eyes.

Karkat leans a little closer to you, practically pressing himself against your side now. “You spend your time in the afterlife sleeping?”

John tilts his head. “It's a hard habit to break. Besides, if you sleep when you're dead, you don't dream. Karkat and Dave—mine, I mean—still need the break from being in their own heads. I'm sure you guys understand.”

Karkat nods.

In your periphery, you see the blankets behind John move.

“Jesus, you guys are loud. Can't a cool dude get some shuteye around here, or are you gonna chatter all night? Shit, should I break out the welcome raps?”

“Shut up,” John laughs. “Say hi.”

“Hi,” says the blankets.

“Dave,” John says.

“What.”

“ _Dave_.”

“Fine.”

You finally manage to pull your gaze off John, because the overwhelming weirdness of hearing your own voice kind of makes it impossible not to look when the source of said voice emerges from the blankets.

You watch John's Dave poke his head out from under the blankets, white eyes squinting against the light. Are you still light-sensitive even when you're dead? Shit, that sucks.

“Yo,” says the dead Dave.

“Hi,” you manage to squeak.

“Hey, bro, chill out, it's just me,” says Dave. “You'd know that better than anyone. Oh, fuck, don't tell me this is one of the timelines where I pretend I'm not gay for years and have to overcome my own terrible closet self through some sort of ridiculous romcom scenario.”

Karkat facepalms again.

“Nope,” you choke out. “Not one of those. I'm gayer than a... yeah, I got nothing, actually, this is just fucking weird.”

“First time?” John asks.

“Yeah.”

Dave, on the bed, smirks and pillows his head in his arms. “Hey, first times are pretty great if you ask me. If you want a try at making out with yourself, I'd be happy to pop that cherry for you.”

You stare at him. At you? Jesus fucking hell this is so terrible. You try to discretely signal to Karkat for help. You flick him in the side.

He elbows you back, hard, and you let out a wheeze, but he also spares you.

“John, when you said _your_ Karkat...”

“He's under here,” dead Dave says, patting the blankets on his other side.

“He sleeps like a log,” John says, fond. “It's cute.”

You glance at Karkat. His cheeks are red, even though the compliment isn't really being paid to him. Or, well, is it? You have a headache. Anyway, he looks a little overwhelmed by this.

“Have you ever met a version of me that achieved god tier?” he asks suddenly.

“Once,” John answers. “He told us about your powers.”

Absently, John reaches over to put his hand on his Dave's shoulder, rubbing circles into his skin with his thumb. Dave visibly leans into the touch.

Something in your chest _aches_.

“They don't reach past death,” Karkat says. You feel him shake momentarily against your side. You know by now that he does that when he's trying not to cry. “I never knew—I never realized we had a chance to be _happy_.”

“Oh,” John whispers. He sounds. So sad.

“Sorry,” Karkat gasps out suddenly, shaking again. Impulsively, you grab his hand, and he squeezes yours so tight that his claws prick your skin. “I just—I'm so relieved.”

“Karkat, baby—” John falters. “Sorry, habit! Um, as I was saying.”

He's blushing, oh god. He's so cute? His Dave chuckles at the flub.

You're a mess. You don't know how to feel about it entirely, but you can't imagine having _this_ , and yet here it is, right in front of you, and—is it so crazy to _want_?

John clears his throat. “No one is destined to suffer. No one is destined for loneliness for eternity. Those are choices we make. If not in one lifetime, there are other chances. Don't ever rule happiness out of your future. There's always hope.”

Dave snorts. “You've been around Dirk and Jake too much.”

“Oh, fuck off,” John says, “It's true. I was there. Right before I died, I thought there was nothing left worth fighting for, but here I am. I get to spend the rest of my afterlife with my two favorite people!”

“Cheesy,” Dave warns. “Put that shit on some chips, make fresh nachos—shit, now I want nachos. Thanks John. Your cheese has caused me insatiable hunger.”

“You're terrible,” John tells him. “Go back to—”

They disappear. You're back in your room, Karkat pressing against your side and shaking like a leaf. Dream bubbles have the shittiest timing, really.

“Thank you,” Karkat says, even though they're gone. But then he continues, “I should have said thank you.”

“I—” your voice comes out as nothing, and you have to clear your throat and lick your lips before your vocal chords figure out their job description again. “I think they'll forgive you. Holy shit what was that? Oh my fucking god, John called you _baby_ , what the hell, what the fuck, what the— _oof_.”

Karkat wraps his arms around you, squeezing all the air out of your lungs. You suppose this is actually an effective way of getting you to stop talking. He's shaking, pressing his face into your neck, and you think this is maybe a weird reaction considering this is approximately the same thing he does when he feels one of his alternate timeline friends and-or lovers die.

Then, abruptly, he stops shaking.

“Karkat?” you wheeze.

He drags you towards his blanket pile, still clinging to you as you shuffle across the room, and he lands on top of you when you spill downwards. The movement knocks Karkat off you enough that you can catch your breath.

“Karkat, are you okay?”

He doesn't say anything, but he nods, then burrows his face between your chin and your shoulder.

You feel something wet on your neck, twin droplets hitting your skin at the same time.

Karkat is crying.

“What, seriously?” you say before you can stop yourself. “Can't bring yourself to cry when one of me dies, but one of me gets fucked by John on the reg, and suddenly the waterworks are fully functioning?”

Karkat manages a wet laugh. “Shut. Shut up. I'm. Just. Fucking happy, okay?”

“Yeah, whatever,” you say.

But you wrap your arms around him anyway, and you don't complain about the red-tinted stain he leaves on the collar of your shirt.

Karkat pulls back after a moment, red trails down his cheeks, and he looks at you with the biggest grin you've ever seen on him. You wonder if the other Karkat—the one that John really does call _baby—_ smiles this wide every day.

“We make it through,” Karkat says. “At least some of us—we're happy.”

He grabs your shoulders, as if to shake his words into you.

“We're happy!” he shouts, bellows it into the existence, on a meteor in the Furthest Ring. You don't know why he needs the void of the universe to know this fact, but he yells it again as if he can convince every timeline everywhere of its truth.

You're not brave enough to shout with him, but when he settles down, shifting so he can lay beside you and rest his head on your shoulder, he whispers, “I'm glad you're here with me, Dave,”

And you answer, words pressed to his forehead, “Me too.”

Stasis is a treacherous thing. You would know—you can control it with a thought.

But that's time, and this is a different kind of stasis. You're unsure if you're grateful for it or not. On one hand, distance (both in time and space) from your session has let your anger towards Karkat lapse, not to mention that you've kind of come to terms with it. It's not like he can know the choices he makes are going to doom everything. You never know a doomed session until it's too late.

Anyway, on the other hand, you're tiptoeing towards a precipice of realization, specifically of the flushed brand, as Karkat would say. As you would say: you may or may not be on the edge of admitting to yourself that you have a raging crush on him. What can you say? Maybe the trolls are on to something with this whole pity thing, because the minute he started coming to you to metaphorically (and once, literally) cry on your shoulder, you've maybe, just maybe, felt something for him.

And okay, maybe the fact he cuddles you like the world's ending contributes.

Karkat holds you like tomorrow won't arrive, and maybe it won't, but that's no need for being dramatic about it. All the same, he presses against you like you're the only thing he needs to live, like your his air and sanity and warmth and everything good in the world.

Even as you hold him in your arms, his breath against your neck, his chest against yours, you're still in stasis.

You're teetering, just on the cliff's edge. A gust of wind would tip you towards the plunging fall, or knock you back to safety, to familiarity. If only this were a matter of John. His wind would take you where you needed to go.

Still, stasis surrounds you, and its not so bad, when you have Karkat here, and sometimes, sometimes, things are almost good.

Stasis, and it persists in this limbo between what is and what could be, at least until one sleepy moment where Karkat lifts his head to peer at you and asks,

“Does it ever bother you that it's like we're—fuck, destined, I guess?—to be together?”

“That true?” you murmur.

Karkat tries to sit up, which result in you being cold because he's very warm and you're comfy and no, fucker, don't you dare move, but you don't actually say that and instead just throw your arms around his neck and drag him back down.

Karkat grumbles out a “clingy bastard” before he gives up the struggle and flops back down on top of you. “Every other timeline, we always end up. Something. And Something with John, too. Somehow. If that's not destiny, then what is?”

“I dunno,” you answer. “I used to think about fate. But it's. Kind of bullshit, will all the timelines and time travel, and I don't think destiny has any idea what's going on, either. Things just. Happen. And at some point the past leads into the future, and if you rewrite the past or make different choices, you end up with a different future, so I think fate is just. What happens when you end up going down a particular path or whatever. Like a bunch of branches. A tree. With infinite branches. And then on those branches are infinite more branches, and then more branches, and eventually you reach a leaf or an apple or nothing, or sometimes a bird breaks of the branch you're on, or there's a worm in your apple, or someone takes your apple and makes it into juice but wait no that's just some piss in a bottle, or some asshole with a chainsaw comes and cuts down the whole tree, so you have to start over from a different root with an entirely different tree.”

“I made the mistake of asking you to open your mouth,” Karkat says dryly.

“Yeah, I was totally on the road to snoozeville like two minutes ago, but you wanted to talk or something. Karkat-dad was driving the car like _don't make me turn this car around_ but then he did anyway, and now we are off-roading right into rambleville instead of snoozeville, gotta reschedule all the reservations we made and everything.”

“I hate you.”

“What happened to being destined to fall in love with me.”

“I didn't say that. We're always involved somehow. Sometimes that means we're kismesis.”

“Shit, really?”

“Yeah.”

“You hatelove me that much, Karkitty?”

“Not _me_ , idiot, I just _said_ that.”

He's blushing. Adorable. You have the terrible Terezi-like thought that you want to lick his cheeks so see if you can taste the warmth of him under your tongue. Ugh. Horrible. Never think that again.

“The answer is no,” you say, miraculously simple. “It doesn't bother me.”

“Because you don't think its destiny?”

“Maybe that's part of it.” You shrug the shoulder that Karkat's not on and lick your lips. The precipice looms, a threat and a comfort at the same time. Stasis, until you say, “But mostly because it's you.”

Karkat's breath hitches. Slowly, he pulls himself away from you enough to look at your face. His gaze is searching, uncharacteristically vulnerable, but then again you suppose he's been vulnerable with you many times, and you're only just now realizing it.

“What's that mean?” he asks.

You quirk a brow at him over your sunglasses. “What d'ya think it means?”

Karkat hits you on the shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to admonish. “This isn't one of my stupid romance novels, Dave.”

“So you admit they're stupid?”

Karkat hits you again. “Say what you mean.”

He has you under a microscope. You squirm under him. “Do I have to?”

“Dave,” he says, stern. Then, softer, “Please.”

Your heart flutters in your chest. Can't he feel it? The pounding of your heartbeat alone should be enough words to last a lifetime. Words are hard—the right ones, at least. You have no problem picking all the wrong ones, over and over again, until you stumble into saying something that's actually means something, but you want to do this right the first time.

So instead of telling him, instead of jumping off that cliff, you ask, “Can I... show you? Instead.”

Karkat takes in a deep breath. “Okay.”

You reach up and take off your sunglasses, carefully setting them out of the way on the bed.

Karkat fidgets on top of you and says, “Fuck, Dave, I'm not gonna be able to read it in your eyes or whatever fucking— _mmphf_.”

You kiss him.

Karkat melts against you, settling down on top of you like he's sinking into some place familiar and safe.

You meant for it to be quick, and then you'd pull away to see his reaction, but Karkat doesn't let you escape. He rearranges himself so he's leaning on his elbows, braced on either side of your head, and he doesn't stop kissing you for a moment, lips moving against yours.

Very carefully, gentle even, he bites your bottom lip, and you still feel his teeth prick you, but its not so much pain as it's just sensation, and you can't help the gasp you let out. Karkat swallows the sound with his mouth.

You slip your hands to his waist with the intent of getting under his shirt, but the minute your fingers brush the skin at Karkat's waist, he shudders and breaks off the kiss, head falling against your shoulder.

“Was that good or bad?” you ask, voice rough and raspy.

“Good,” Karkat gasps. “Just—sensitive. Grubscars.”

You knew about those, in a vague sense, but you've only touched them through Karkat's clothes, and apparently the skin-on-skin contact makes all the difference in the universe. You pet along Karkat's sides, and he shivers, muscles jumping under your hands.

His arms start shaking, and he falters enough that his weight collapses onto you. You wheeze, digging your fingers into his hips as he knocks your breath out of out, and he answers you with a moan. Useless horny troll.

With effort, you roll both of you, so that Karkat's under you, and you sit up, thighs on either side of his hips, so that you can watch Karkat's reactions as you press your fingers against the sensitive patches of his grubscars. He looks up at you, almost dazed, breath coming in shallow pants. He looks good, like he's at your mercy, and something about that sits warm and arousing in your gut, so you keep touching him.

At least until he reaches for one your wrists, gripping so you can't move your hand much.

“If you keep that up...” he says, but he doesn't finish. Just looks at you with his gaze half-lidded and waits for you to put two-and-two together.

You lick your lips. “Do you...” you start, and stop. False start, racers reset, wait for the countdown. “What next?”

Karkat makes a low noise, rumbling and curious. You feel it in his chest, and you can't help the shiver that sound pulls out of your body.

Karkat must feel it, too, because his eyes widen, pupils dilating. He does it again, with more intent, and you plant a hand on the middle of his chest to get him to chill out. Because if he doesn't you're going to like, combust on the spot or something ridiculous like that. You need a moment to _think_ , for fuck's sake.

“Shh,” you hiss, “I—”

Second false start of the night. Figure it out, racer, or you're disqualified. Get it together.

Karkat releases your wrist, and instead settles his hands on your thighs. His palms feel like the heat of a brand, even through your pants, and suddenly you want him to leave burns all over your body. Your scars have always held memories, and you want him to leave his own marks, write himself onto your skin.

You want him to burn you, and if this flame consumes you, if this inferno is the start of the end of the universe, then you decide you want it all the same. You've been doomed from the start, anyway, so might as well go out in a blaze of glory.

“I think,” you say, finally, “that some of our alternate selves got a head start, and we have some catching up to do.”

Karkat's brow furrows, and damn him for being stupid when you're trying to be suave. You roll your eyes, and you forget Karkat can actually see that. He opens his mouth to protest, but pull your shirt over your head and the thought seems to die on his tongue.

You plant your hands on his chest. “Take this off. I'm not doing this while you're wearing your cape.”

Karkat sits up to comply, gets tangled in his clothes, and you have to help him struggle out of it. He flings his cape across the room out of spite. And then that leaves you chest-to-chest, and Karkat's gaze is on you like he can't quite believe this is happening.

So you do everything you can to make him believe. You kiss him hard on the mouth, and he groans, and his hands, searing, land against your ribs, and you want this so much.

In a moment (fourteen seconds, says the Knight of Time in the back of your brain), you're begging against his lips, rambling, “Karkat, Karkat, _please_ , touch me, god, Karkat—”

And he does touch you, and for once the words spilling out of your mouth are the right ones, because they're all shameless and all for Karkat. When he kisses you while you're trying to talk, you wonder if he can still taste the meaning on his tongue, if he knows how much you want him while he's licking into your mouth.

He leaves bites on your shoulders, claws down your back, and you plan to wear those marks like medals. You tell him that, and he looks at you for a moment like you're crazy, but then he sucks a bruise against your neck. He burns himself onto you, and you learn the taste of him, and if nothing else, the universe allows you this.

A year passes, and you're drifting. Literally, with the meteor still swimming through the Furthest Ring, until some untimely end meets you all, possibly tomorrow, but maybe a hundred years from now. Metaphorically, too, you've come to terms with this existence, but it's only a partial existence.

You see the same faces every day, hear the same voices, poke sharp objects into the same vents when you don't want Gamzee spying on you and Karkat making out. It's a mixture of happiness in the arms of a lover, paired with the restlessness and loss of losing another.

Of course, over the past months since you and Karkat made it official, and by official, you mean formally saying _fuck off_ to all sorts of quadrant rules and other troll romance bullshit, you've seen John in bubbles. Sometimes, even, he spends the night with you, in the metaphorical sense, seeing as night is a very relative thing in dream bubbles.

But it's never enough, and it leaves an ache in your chest. And you miss him, still. You miss him, always.

So you drift. You take what you can get. You sleep next to Karkat, and you wish there were another set of arms around you, and you hope that somewhere, out there, there's still hope for other versions of you.

According to Karkat, there is, at least.

He murmurs reassurance against your temple. Whispers your memories to you, memories you've never had, but some version of you did, that he can feel through the tethers of his aspect. Sometimes it's easy to believe him, and sometimes it feels like it would take a lifetime in order to convince yourself that some part of you, even in another timeline, another universe, would be allowed to be happy.

You fall asleep to the pitched-low rumble of his voice, with his arms around you.

You fall asleep, and you dream.

The world fizzles into existence around you. It's somewhere forest-infested and heavy with the scent of rain. The ground is spongy beneath your feet. You don't recognize it.

Karkat appears next to you.

You look at each other, appraising.

“Pineapple,” you say.

Karkat makes a face like he'd rather be eating dirt. “Disgusting,” he answers. “Grubsauce.”

Your turn to make a face. “On pizza?”

Karkat shrugs. “It's the only way.”

“Hell no,” you say.

So, it's definitely your Karkat. You've confirmed through your greeting of discussing pizza toppings. You had to figure out some sort of secret code after one particularly confusing mix up with a dream bubble containing a number of failed time-loop Daves. It was messy.

“Where are we?” you ask.

“Looks like near Terezi's place,” Karkat says. “Not sure.”

“Think she's here too?”

He shrugs. “One way to find out.” He takes in a deep breath and then absolutely fuckin' bellows, “ _TEREZI._ ”

You follow it up with, “HEY, CLOWNFUCKER, IF YOU'RE HERE COME HANG OUT.”

A few creatures squawk in the distance. No sound of Terezi.

Karkat waits a moment longer and then shrugs again.

“Boring,” you decide. “If we try hard enough, think we could convince it to give us a more interesting setting?”

But Karkat doesn't seem to be paying much attention to you. Instead, he's squinting into the forest, head tilted like he's trying to listen. You hear the sound of rustling leaves in the wind, and little else.

Karkat suddenly grabs your arm, dragging you in the opposite direction of where he'd been looking.

“What—” you start, but Karkat growls at you.

“This one is plenty interesting,” he hisses. “We should not have been yelling.”

“Why the fuck not?” you whisper back.

“Can you use your time powers while you're dreaming?”

“What for?” You actually have no idea if you can or not. You've never tried.

“I need you to flashstep the fuck out of here.”

“What, why?”

“So you're _safe_ ,” Karkat snaps suddenly. He's looking over his shoulder, but his gaze flicks to you for a moment, and whatever it is you're running from has obviously spooked him.

“I can't take you with me,” you say. “I'm not leaving you.”

“I'm not letting you get hurt,” Karkat counters.

“What's after us?”

Karkat bites his lip. “I think we've been scented by a dragon lusus. They're territorial as fuck, and they don't give up prey easily. If we're caught, it's means a fight. And probably death.”

“Karkat, we're asleep, what's the worst that could happen.”

“You died on Derse, didn't you?” Karkat huffs.

You swallow. Yeah, he maybe has a point. You are occasionally willing to admit that Karkat is right about things, sometimes. So you pick up the pace a little as he pulls you along, stumbling over the foliage beside him rather than being dragged.

“You need to go,” Karkat says. “If that thing catches us, you're dead.”

“I'm not leaving you,” you repeat.

“Yes, you are.”

“What about you?”

“I'll be fine.”

“You _just_ said if that dragon gets to us, we'll die.”

Karkat growls. “I said _you'll_ die. I'll probably die, but I'm god tier, so—”

“You really think that staying behind while I escape to fight a futile battle isn't a heroic death?”

Karkat's grip on your arm tightens. “Dave—”

The rest of his words are drowned out by the crashing of trees and undergrowth, directly behind you. Karkat whirls, shoving you behind him so you stumble a few paces away before you catch yourself.

“Go!” he shouts at you.

You turn with the intent to tell him off, but the words die on your tongue when you see just how _massive_ the creature looming over you both is. How the fuck did it manage to stalk you both so quietly?

Karkat takes a careful step back towards you, and the dragon's nostrils flare in response. Karkat freezes. He warbles out a quiet chirp that you recognize as something soothing and pale. Is he trying to reason with it? You bite your own tongue to keep from freaking out.

Whatever he's doing, it doesn't seem to be working, because the dragon roars and Karkat yelps, “ _Run_!”

You grab him by the stupid cape and haul him backwards. He flails, arms pinwheeling, and nearly falls on his ass, but you catch him under the armpits and start dragging him.

The dragon, meanwhile, snuffles and turns its gaze directly on you.

Karkat scrambles to regain his footing, and then bodily flings himself into you.

You both tumble to the ground, Karkat on top of you. You watch as the ground you were standing on gets seared into a burnt patch of black ash.

“Flashstep!” Karkat yells at you. “Now!”

But from where he's picking himself up off of you, he can't see the dragon. Can't see how its gaze lands directly on his back, and its eyes light with heat.

You flashstep. But you don't run.

You put yourself between the dragon's oncoming fire and Karkat. Hopefully it will give him time to get out of the way before your body turns to a crisp. You stare down the muzzle of a dragon, take a deep breath, and let time catch up to you.

The blaze overtakes you. You scream.

And you keep screaming, as you wake up, back on the meteor, panting and flailing and sweating fucking buckets, holy shit.

Your voice peters out into a series of broken gasps. You force yourself to take a deep breath, rather than gulping down air like you just ran a marathon. Next to you, Karkat twitches in his sleep. Sitting up, you gently rest your hand on his shoulder.

A moment later, he jolts awake much like you did, scrabbling his feet against the bed and lashing out with claws and whimpering, and—

“Karkat, Karkat, hey,” you say, quiet and raspy. “It's okay. Just a dream, after all, I guess?”

He freezes, but he looks at you with something like horror in his eyes.

You quirk a brow at him. Run your tongue along your lips. “Uh, I told you so?”

It's like your voice breaks the spell, because suddenly there's tears spilling down Karkat's face. He flings himself at you, and you end up pinned to the mattress with Karkat curling up on your chest as if he can manage to sit entirely on top of you like a cat if he just makes himself small enough.

He's way to big for that to succeed, but he seems determined to try.

“Hey,” you wheeze, “What's... Jesus, you're. Nhhh—heavy.”

Karkat's claws prick through your shirt and reach down to your skin, and then he's ripping through your shirt and touching your shoulders, your chest, and crying against your neck.

“It's okay,” you manage, “I'm here.”

Karkat smacks his palm over one of your nipples. You think that's accidental, but you let out a little offended, _“Hey, ow_ ,” anyway.

Karkat finally lifts his head to look at you. Stares for a minute, sniffling. He hits you again, this time right on your sternum. “I thought you fucking died!”

You swallow. Your fingers reach for him on their own accord, swiping tears that still keep coming off his cheeks. “I know,” you say. “But I said I wasn't leaving you, right?”

“You didn't know that!” Karkat yells.

Your heart clenches. He looks angry, but he's bawling and shaking and falling apart around you. There's fear under that anger. He's so, so scared for you.

“I can't lose you,” Karkat gasps out, claws pricking into your skin. “I _can't_ watch you die, I can't handle that again, not with _you_.”

“Karkat, I'm here. I'm fine. Fine as fuck. Definitely could use a little more air in my windpipes, and a new shirt, but I'm fine. You've got me right here. And even if I wasn't, you'd still manage to find me, probably. Maybe another me.”

Karkat shakes his head furiously. “NO. Nonono, you don't get it. You're _real_. You're— _you_. Dave. This Dave. _My_ Dave. I _can't lose you_.”

Your heart stutters painfully in your chest. You drag Karkat back down to your chest, squeezing him so tight you'll probably hurt someone. Probably you, since you're way squishier than he is.

You press a kiss to the sweaty tangle of his hair, his temple, the tip of one nubby horn. “I get it,” you murmur, “I'm not going anywhere, babe.”

He bites your shoulder, and you hiss, because fucking _ow_. But the longer his teeth threaten to break your skin, the better he seems to feel. You stroke a hand down his back, letting your nails scratch a repetitive path between his shoulder blades.

Eventually, he relaxes slightly. The pressure of his teeth finally retreats, replaced by his tongue he licks over the sore bruise he's left against your collar bone.

“Better?” you ask.

“Sorry,” he rasps.

“It's okay.”

“No, I... Sorry.”

“Karkat.”

He stops. Picks himself up enough to meet your gaze.

You run your fingers absently through his hair, and the movement eventually turns into a caress, cupping Karkat's cheek in your palm. He leans into it.

“I'm okay,” you say, firm. “It was just a dream. We're okay.”

He reaches up to put his hand over yours, and looks at you like you might disappear at any moment. “I—that's. That's my worst nightmare. Watching you die. Failing to save you.”

“I know,” you whisper. “But you did save me.”

Karkat sniffles. “Not this—”

“No, it was a dream, okay? A dream. You did save me. Last year.”

Haltingly, he nods.

You brace yourself on your elbow and lean up for a kiss. Karkat falls against you and nearly sends you flat on the bed again, but you manage to stay in place. He tries to turn the kiss desperate, moving his lips quick and wet against yours, but you use the hand on his cheek and your tongue to guide him into something soft and languid.

When you pull back, Karkat seems to have found his chill again. At least until he looks you right in the eyes and says, “I love you.”

Your breath hitches. Of course you _knew_ , in the amorphous sort of way, with the whole Knight of Blood thing. You knew, reading between the lines in conversations. You knew, because Karkat said as much indirectly, in the way he's in love with every Dave.

But he's not talking about any Dave. He's talking about you. His Dave. _His_.

You kiss him, hard. That's what he gets, after you spent all that time getting him to relax. He can't just say that shit and expect you to be calm about it, and maybe that's what he wants, and—

“Karkat,” you breathe, between kisses, “Karkat, I love you, so much, fuck, Karkat. I'm yours. I'm yours, and you have me, and I'm not leaving, I'm fucking yours, I love—”

Karkat licks into your mouth, muffling your words, and Karkat keeps your mouth too busy to talk much more after that.

Terezi looks up from where she's got her nose buried in one of Karkat's romance novels. On the same pile of dragon plushies, Kanaya is snuggled next to her, dozing. Karkat lifts his head off your shoulder and quirks a brow at her. He's sitting next to you on the couch while you scribble potential lyrics into a notebook.

Terezi sniffs. “Incoming.”

“Party time,” you say.

When dream bubbles hit, by pure chance, you're all so rarely close enough to be dragged in together. This one should be interesting, at least. You wait for it to hit.

And then nothing happens.

You ball up a piece of paper and throw it so it bonks Terezi in the horn. “You've been sniffing the clown too much recently. It's fucked your senses.”

Terezi looks puzzled for a moment, but then her lips curl into a lazy smirk. “My nose is great, actually. Sniff behind you.”

“Not falling for it,” you say.

But Karkat turns to look over the back of the couch and goes, “Holy shit!”

“Not you, too,” you say.

You hear and feel the whoosh of air as Karkat jumps up and whips out his sickle. Okay, maybe he's not just going along with it.

“One more step, and I'm taking your head off your shoulders,” Karkat snarls.

“Whoa, feisty,” comes the answer, and you finally turn around.

You have no idea who this bitch is.

“I'd like to see you try, kitty-Kat, seeing as I'm already dead.”

“Are you ours?” Terezi asks, putting the book down.

“Depends, did you stab me through the fucking chest in this one?”

Glancing over your shoulder, you catch Terezi's scowl. “That sounds like something I'd love to do in theory, but no.”

“Not your timeline, then.”

Karkat wavers, but he still holds his weapon between himself and your dream bubble visitor. His eyes flicker with something like horror. “You _killed_ your Tavros?”

“Who?” you ask. He must have used some of his god-power to figure that one out, but you're confused as shit.

Your visitor looks nonplussed. “I kill a lot of useless idiots. What's one more? A lowblood cripple, at that.”

Karkat lets out a growl that sends a shiver down your spine. “You caused that, too!”

“Excuse you, I had nothing to do with his worthless mud-color, thank you very much. The crippling, though, I do take some pride in.”

Terezi, behind you, snorts. “Some reward it got you, Vriska.”

Vriska plants a hand on her hip, facing Terezi and ignoring Karkat gearing up to slice her into pieces. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I died because I killed him. Kind of. Also because I was about to do something really stupid, and you didn't have any other choice.”

Terezi makes a soft noise in her throat that cuts off abruptly. “You don't say?”

Karkat looks between them, and finally unequips his sickle. “Do you two need a moment?”

“No,” both Vriska and Terezi say at the same time.

Terezi clears her throat, awkward.

“So, what's happening in this timeline? What's the juicy gossip? Who killed who?”

“Doomed timeline,” you say, “Approximately everyone's dead but us.”

Vriska's face lights up. “Anyone die especially tragically? How many did Gamzee take out?”

“Gamzee?” Terezi chirps. “Wait, Gamzee took people out in your run? Spill. I'm always looking for reasons to hate him.”

Karkat groans.

“Hate—you're pailing the murderclown?” Vriska asks.

“What can I say, you were always my impulse control. Or the opposite of it. Or something.”

“How long have I been dead in this timeline that it's gotten this bad?” Vriska throws her hands up in the air, then sighs. “I can't leave you guys alone for a second.”

“Fuck off,” Karkat says. “You got Sollux killed for good during our session and got your ass kicked by a denizen.”

“You're telling me I didn't even hit god tier? Damn, other me's are _disappointing_. Never meet your heroes, kids.”

Karkat rolls his eyes. “It's not all it's cracked up to be.”

“Fuck that, god tier is _great_ ,” Vriska says, “How would you...” she seems to actually process that Karkat's wearing his god tier outfit, standing right in front of her. “ _You_?” she spits, “ _You_ went god tier, and I didn't? What the fuck?”

Karkat lets out a little huff and crosses his arms. “Yeah, and it's what doomed our session, so gloat all you want, asswipe.”

Vriska stares at him for a moment. “You're serious?” she says. And then bursts into laughter.

Okay, so maybe you can see why Karkat's not fond of her.

After a minute, Kanaya speaks up for the first time, “Are you quite done?”

Vriska snuffles. “Maybe. Depends what else you tell me about this ridiculous doomed offshoot of a timeline. How are you even here? You're not dead, right?”

“Meteor,” Karkat says. “Sent it to the Furthest Ring.”

“Why would you do _that_?” Vriska says incredulously. “I mean, it's futile. How'd you even come up with that idea?”

“I have connections to other timelines,” Karkat says. “We're just delaying the inevitable.”

“Ugh, what's the point,” Vriska groans, “Being dead is way better, anyway. You can go anywhere, and do all sorts of cool shit. I've got so many plans, now. Way better than when I was alive. Bigger rewards at the end, too. Y'know, if you were dead, you could help me instead of being useless sacks of shit on a rock.”

“Why the fuck would we help you,” you say.

At the same time, Karkat says, “How would we even help you. Ghosts are contained in dream bubbles.”

“Ah,” Vriska says, “Of course, we're stuck in dream bubbles, but the afterlife is kinda like this messy interconnected _web_. Ghosts can pop up anywhere if you know how to get there, or if you know how to convince them.”

“And of course, convincing them is no trouble for you,” Kanaya deadpans.

Vriska grins, all fang, all bravado. “Likes flies caught in a spiderweb.”

Kanaya grimaces.

“Anyway, you all should die soon so you can join me! Way more interesting than whatever you're doing here.”

“Oh, yeah, I always get hot and bothered when a girl tells me to kill myself,” you say dryly.

Karkat scowls at you, but then he turns back to Vriska. “You said that you can summon ghosts?”

Vriska quirks a brow. “Why, you pining for some of your dead losers? Want me to call them? Is it Sollux? No, wait, I bet it's Tavros! Wouldn't that be rich, the two most useless—”

“Shut up,” Karkat snaps. “Like I'd ever ask for your fucking favor, you double-crossing bitch. If you know how to get around the Furthest Ring so well, then get out of here. I'm sure you've got better things to do than fuck with us.”

“Oh, you have no idea. So many irons in the fire, Karkat!”

And then, with a smirk, she disappears. Surprisingly easy.

“Good riddance,” you say, like some fucking Victorian waif or something. “What crawled up her ass and died? She's gonna choke on that god complex she's constantly deepthroating.”

Karkat leans into your side, chewing on his lip.

“She's always like that,” Terezi supplies, picking up her book again.

“Insufferable,” Kanaya agrees. “Thankfully, it seems like she actually does have better things to do than bother us.”

Terezi pokes Kanaya in the side. “Didn't you have a thing for her?”

Kanaya looks away. “A thing?”

“Like a flushed thing. Oh, I can taste your blush from here, you _did_ have a thing for her!”

Kanaya sighs. “Her confidence, however much is simple bluster, is admittedly attractive. You can't blame me. I seem to constantly find myself invested in difficult people.”

“Do you want to borrow Gamzee for a while? He's generally agreeable towards hating most things if you annoy him enough.”

Kanaya shoves a hand into Terezi's face. “Please, never suggest that to me again.”

Terezi cackles. “No promises, your blush is delicious.”

“You're shameless,” Kanaya mutters.

“Do _you_ need a room?” you ask them.

“Only if you don't want to watch,” Terezi says with a grin. She ducks her head to press a sloppy kiss to Kanaya's cheek, and Kanaya lets out a sort of scandalized gasp.

“Well, that's a hard invitation to turn down,” you say. “Think you can get her to glow if you mess with her enough?”

“Dave!” Kanaya scolds, blushing deep green.

“I'll certainly try!” Terezi chirps. She gets her arms around Kanaya's waist before Kanaya can scramble away, and blows a messy raspberry against Kanaya's neck.

Kanaya lets out a sort of chittering noise, interspersed with laughter, and shoves at Terezi. “Oh, let me go! This is hardly proper. For public behavior or quadrants.”

“Fuck quadrants,” Terezi says, biting at Kanaya's shoulder like she's a particularly nice chew toy. “It's the end of the world! I'm gonna smooch you 'til you're glowing, Kan! Dave, come help! She's ticklish on the backs of her knees. I'll hold her down for you.”

“Oh hell yeah.”

You jump in on that. Kanaya nearly kicks you in the dick, but you flashstep out of the way before the hit connects, and you end up in a tangle with both of them. When you get your hands on her, Kanaya starts laughing so hard she snorts.

“Karkles, you coming?” Terezi asks between blowing raspberries all over Kanaya's neck and shoulders.

“Stop fondling my horns, you brute!” Kanaya manages to gasp out between giggles. “Karkat, help!”

You expect to be barreled into. Wouldn't be the first time Karkat has rammed into you with blatant disregard for the fact his horns hurt like a bitch when he plants them right into your back. Except that he doesn't come. Doesn't even grumble out an answer.

You sit yourself on top of Kanaya's thighs so she can't kick you off. (She totally could, she's like twenty times stronger than you, and she's absolutely indulging both you and Terezi with this bullshit, you kind of love her for it, and oh jesus, are you pale for Kanaya or something?)

You twist so you can look at Karkat. He's still standing where you left him, brow furrowed. “Karkat? Babe?”

He seems to snap out of it, and when he looks up at the three of you, it takes a moment to process before his lips curl into a fond smile. He snorts out a quiet laugh. “Idiots.”

You beam at him, like a lovestruck fool, because you fucking are, and you've learned that when you get moments like these that you take them and you treasure them. “Come over here.”

Karkat chews on his lip. You have the sudden urge to abandon Terezi to deal with Kanaya on her own in favor of kissing the shit out of Karkat.

But Karkat's expression shutters back into thoughtful. “I'll pass this time. I've got. I. Hm.”

Your brows lift over your glasses. “You okay?”

You can see the way Karkat's shoulders relax, tension breathing out of him. “I'm fine,” he says, “Vriska gave me something to think about. I'm gonna. Go. Think about things.”

Terezi pulls her face off Kanaya's neck like an ostrich head emerging from a hole. Her sneer is downright lecherous. “Vriska got you blackrom hot, Kar? Gonna go rub one out for your pitch?”

Karkat pretends to gag. “God, no. About the ghosts.”

“Oh, _sure_ ,” Terezi says, clearly disbelieving.

You can't stop your matching terrible grin. “Well, babe, if you need help thinking about ghosts, I've got a degree in ectoplasm and similar fluids.”

“Disgusting,” Kanaya huffs. “You both are terrible.”

“You haven't seen anywhere close to terrible,” you snark at her. To Karkat, you add, “Really, though, Karkat, if you wanna talk... You know where to find me, yeah?”

The expression Karkat wears makes you go all soft and gooey inside, like a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. While you're staring at him, his entire body flickers, and suddenly he appears kneeling next to you.

“I'll always find you,” he murmurs against your lips as he kisses you.

“Show off,” Terezi grumbles. “You're interrupting our mischief, Karkles.”

“Fine,” Karkat says, pulling away. He kisses Kanaya's cheek and ruffles his claws through Terezi's hair before he goes.

You watch him leave.

Terezi punches you in the shoulder to get your attention again. “Focus, Strider, we have a rainbow drinker to scandalize!”

Kanaya groans. You watch as her expression goes from _damn it_ to _fuck it all_ , and she reaches up to grab the back of Terezi's neck, pulling her down until their lips connect.

When Terezi ends up being the one blushing teal down her neck, you laugh so hard you fall on the floor.

A couple of days later, Karkat takes you up on that standing offer to talk about it.

You're being nice, filing his claws for him because they get real unruly if he doesn't take care of them, and he's rambling something about ghosts and timelines and bonds and dream bubbles, and you're trying to keep up, but you really only get the time stuff and that's it.

And when he's close to the end, he says, “So, I think, maybe, we can find John.”

You stop what you're doing and stare at him. “Like, our John? The dead one?”

Karkat licks his lips. “Yes.”

“I thought your bonds didn't reach to ghosts?”

He lets out a long breath. “I can't _feel_ dead versions of me, but I'm not sure if that means I'm not connected? I think I could still find him.”

You release his hand and drop yours into your lap. You think of the last thing you said to John, your John, pleading with him, saying your sorry, begging him to stay. “This John hates me, though, and you've barely talked to him.”

“Yeah, but. Ugh. I don't know if it'll work across timelines?”

You chew on the inside of your cheek. You think of the John you met that mourned you, the one that kissed you like you were a fragile thing. You wish there was some way to be the Dave he needs and the one that Karkat needs, here. You take a deep breath. “Okay, so, what are you thinking of?”

“I just said—”

“Okay, yes, and it was all very intellectual and my brain fuzzed out for anything that wasn't timeline stuff. It just went in one ear, melted my brain into goop, and then poured out the other ear like you when you—”

“Stop,” Karkat says, blushing. “Stop that.”

“Speak to me like I'm an idiot,” you say, “You've never had trouble with that.”

Karkat rolls his eyes. “In theory, I can bring us both to a dream bubble that he's located in. We'd be there, physically, and he'd be there in the afterlife. We'd. It'd be like... as if the meteor stopped in the middle of dream bubble, rather than passing through.”

“We'd have to leave the meteor,” you say. It's not a question.

“Yes,” Karkat says. “But I might be able to take the others with us, if they want to come. I think Kanaya would want to find Rose, and if Vriska's right about the afterlife being connected, once we're in a part that our John can get to, I don't see why this timeline's Rose wouldn't be able reach us.”

“Speaking of, Rose would probably know a lot more about this shit than I would,” you say.

Karkat nods. “If she was here to bounce ideas off of, I'd take the chance, but. Well.”

“Why don't you wait for a dream bubble with a Rose, then?” you offer. “Can't hurt to double check your blood math or whatever it is.”

Karkat seems to ponder this for a moment. “Yeah, probably a good idea. I just... I. Miss him. I don't want to wait.”

You wince. “Don't get your hopes up,” you mutter. “He _left_ Karkat. Because I kissed him. He _died_ because I kissed him.”

“He didn't die because you kissed him,” Karkat tells you, firm. “He died because he tried to fight his denizen.”

“What?” you splutter.

Karkat takes one of your hands and runs his thumb over your knuckles. “I don't know. What exactly he was doing. But I felt when he died. I know a little... About how he felt. I can't tell you he didn't intend to leave, because he did. You freaked him out. But I don't think he hated you.”

You scrub a hand over your face, sending your glasses askew in the process. “I mean. That's. That's great, that he didn't hate me, I guess. But I. He still. I don't know. I don't know if this is a good idea.”

Karkat squeezes your hand. “Are you afraid?”

All the air whistles out of your lungs in a long exhale. “Yeah.”

Karkat lets out a huff. “I can't make you not afraid.”

“I didn't expect you to,” you say. “That's my bullshit to deal with, and, uh, John's, I guess, kind of? I don't know.”

“No, I mean.” Karkat groans. “I mean. I want to reassure you. But I don't know, either. This. This is a gamble, no matter what. It's... all up to John. Assuming we get there in one piece.”

“Would we even survive, out there? Like—food, water, that shit? Does it work in dream bubbles?”

Karkat's shoulder hunch. “I don't know.”

You laugh, bitter. “I really wish Rose wasn't dead.” You shake your head, looking down at your hand, curled around Karkat's. “How come you saved me, and not John?”

You watch Karkat do another soft sweep of his thumb over your knuckle. “I... couldn't.”

“Oh.”

“He... he was already dead, by the time I figured out how to get to you. And I—I didn't know... what to do. I thought, maybe, you'd travel back and go fix it all, so I wasn't sure when to step in. After John died, your timeline, what I could see of it, just started glitching out. Skipping over like it was replaying the last thing that happened again and again. I didn't know if it was something you did, or because I stepped in, and I. It was too late. _I_ was too late. To save him.”

You feel fresh tears burn your eyes. You try not to cry, and only barely succeed, staring down at your lap with blurry eyes.

“I... I was hoping. This. Doing this. Would be a way of making it right.”

“I don't blame you,” you say, soft. “For John dying.”

“You did, before.”

“I did,” you say. “But not because you couldn't save him. Because this timeline was never meant to succeed. If this was all fate or chance or filling out the infinite branches of choice, then this was all... Meant to happen. In a way. I don't know. It's hard to blame you for a choice when you never could know the consequences.”

A laugh surprises you by bubbling from your chest.

Karkat sucks in a worried breath. “Dave?”

“Kanaya told me, when you first brought me here,” you start in a murmur, “That everyone blames themselves. And that's true, but it's so bullshit. We make choices, and those choices _always_ matter. We shouldn't have to fucking hate ourselves just because he picked a wrong choice somewhere down the line. We don't even know _which_ ones are the wrong choices. For all we know, the reason this timeline is doomed is 'cause I decided to wear black socks instead of white one day. And that's a stupid reason to be doomed, but its possible. We shouldn't suffer for the act of _trying_.”

It's Karkat's turn for the surprised laugh. “That was. Impressively coherent.”

“Hey, fuck you,” you mumble. “I'm filled with wisdom.”

Karkat snorts, but he doesn't argue.

Means he's really thinking about something, then.

You let him ruminate, and in the meantime you try not to think of the face John made when he pushed you away. You try, and fail, but you manage not to cry. You meant it when you said you're tired of blaming yourself for useless reasons.

Finally, Karkat mumbles, “I'm sorry.”

“God, what for?”

“I don't know,” he breathes. “This is just. It's messy. And I won't do it if you don't want to, but fuck, I... This is a _real_ chance. I—I can't help being _hopeful_.”

You squeeze his hand this time. “Yeah, I get it. Let's, um. We'll wait until you can find someone to figure this out? And in the meantime, I'll... try to make peace with it, or something.”

“Okay,” Karkat says. He tugs at your hand until you look up at him and meet his gaze. “I love you, you know. No matter what.”

You couldn't stop the smile if you tried. “I know,” you say. “God, if there's anything I fuckin' know it's that you love me.”

Karkat grins. “Good. Did you finish that hand yet?”

“What?”

Karkat scrapes his claws against your wrist. At least two of them are scratchy, still. “Oh,” you say, “Not yet.”

“Not yet,” Karkat echoes absently. Like it's a promise.

You think, maybe, that it is.

You interrupt Kanaya's reading by slithering under her arms and directly into her lap.

“What,” she says.

“As my boyfriend's moirail, I demand transitive property moirallegiance.”

“What.”

You plant your hands on Kanaya's shoulders and look over the edge of your glasses at her. “Kanaya, I am in the deep shit of feelings and I need someone to talk to that isn't Karkat because he's working through his own truckload of fuckery, and there's no way in hell I'm going to _Terezi_ for advice.”

Kanaya licks absently at one of her fangs. “Well, that last part is rather sound.”

“Right, okay, so, Karkat's got this idea that he can teleport us—standing invite, by the way, if he can figure it out—to a dream bubble that overlaps with this timeline's afterlife so we can hang with our dead buddies until the inevitable heat death of the universe or until we die of starvation, whichever comes first, who knows, but the problem is the last time I saw this universe's John, he basically left me at the damn altar like a wilting bride. I mean I was wrecked, mascara running down my face, tore my pristine white dress and everything kind of _fuck you—_ ”

It's at this point that you realize Kanaya's wary expression has devolved into giggles.

“Kanaya,” you say. “Kan, please, this is serious Strider romance drama. It's movie-worthy. Oscar-worthy, even. Do you laugh at my pain? Do you mock me? Is this how you treat your moirail's quadrant-fucking asshole boyfriend? I'm going to leave a one-star review on troll Yelp.”

Kanaya's outright laughing now, but she settles her hands on your thighs to keep you from leaving while she recovers. “I'm sorry,” she gasps out. “You're just. So much. I don't know how he handles you, Dave Strider.”

“Well, I'm certainly a handful,” you say, grinning.

Kanaya squeezes one of your legs, claws pricking through your pants just enough to make themselves known. She smiles back at you and answers, “You certainly are. Now, where were you? John... left you?”

“Yes!” you say, picking right back up on your bullshit. “Yes, bride, beautiful metaphorical wedding, and then it was all _you may now kiss the bride_ and I kissed him, but then he realized he was kissing me, which presumably the issue was that I'm a dude, and John's not into dicks, which is a real shame, because Karkat's—”

Kanaya grimaces, and because you actually want her to help and not make her dump you all over the floor, you skip like a record stuttering and keep going, “—Karkat's told me gender is a real different thing for trolls, but its this whole production for humans, and inconvenient. Whatever, anyway, I kissed John, and then he disappeared for a while, and wouldn't talk to me, and Karkat says he went off to go try to kill his denizen. But he failed.”

“And now you are faced with the possibility of reuniting?” Kanaya guesses.

“Yeah,” you say, and slump against her. You curl up like you've seen Karkat do with her, and you end up with your chin against her—well, they aren't _boobs_ , but you don't remember the troll word for them, so they're totally boobs.

“And what do you want me to do about it?” Kanaya asks mildly. She strokes a hand down your back, anyway.

“I dunno,” you mumble into her shirt.

“Well, do you want to see John again?”

“Fuck yeah,” you say, “But he hates me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh. Well. Karkat said he didn't, actually. Probably. But I think Karkat's got a lot going on with his aspect. Like it's hard for him to tell the difference sometimes between what he knows in this timeline rather than another one, so I don't know if he's really thinking through what would happen if we track down John, 'cause he's just thinking about all the John-love he's feelin' over his powers. Is that shitty of me to say?”

Kanaya shakes her head. “I think you're right, about it being hard to separate where the emotion comes from.” Her other hand threads through your hair, and she lets out a little surprised, pleased chirp. “Oh! It's so soft.”

You hum, leaning into her hand. “Yeah, human hair is a lot silkier, usually.” You pat your hand against her hip. “While we're sharing compliments, have I ever told you how great your tits are? They're like pillows. No wonder everyone always wants to cuddle the fuck out of you, you're so comfy.”

“My what?” Kanaya says, and glances down to where you're blatantly resting your cheek on one of her boobs. “Oh. Yes, I suppose they're useful for cuddling.”

“Just thought you'd like to know,” you say. “These are in very high demand for humans.”

“Are they?” Kanaya muses. “Trolls don't think much of them.”

“Well, I think they're great.”

“Yes, you said,” Kanaya says, with laughter in her voice. “Anyway, about Karkat.”

You hum to show that you're listening and definitely not falling asleep.

“Despite being potentially muddled by other timelines, I think he's also possibly the most reliable source you have for anything John might have felt, or might be feeling now.”

“But he can't read feelings from dead Johns.”

“Yes, but he knows many of them, across many timelines, who have each been through unique experiences. You've met other Johns, haven't you?”

“Yeah.”

“And have all of them hated you?”

“No.” You sit on that for a moment. You also continue to sit in Kanaya's lap. Yeah, you're so fucking pale for her, whatever that means. Fuck. “There was one... His Dave had kissed him, too, but then I—he—died, instead of John. And that John was. I think he blamed himself for me—Dave—dying. Like everything was the same except who made it out alive. When we met, we made out for a while.”

Kanaya snickers. “See, if you wanted something close to proof, that's a pretty strong case in favor of a happy potential reunion for you and John.”

“Yeah, I guess,” you admit. “You're talking all lawyer-y. You've been hanging out with Terezi, haven't you.”

Kanaya snorts. “Well, with you and Karkat glued together at the hip, there's not many other options around here.”

“Fair enough,” you concede. “Tell me if she's as good a kisser as she claims.”

Kanaya, to her credit, only blushes a little. “She's quite adept.”

“Nice.”

Kanaya pinches your side, and you jolt away from her with a squeak.

“This isn't about me,” she says while you stare at her, betrayed. “We're talking about you and Karkat and John. What else?”

You stare at her hand, wary, for a full twenty-four seconds before you finally settle back down. “I guess I'm just... afraid of seeing Karkat do all of this, only for John to take one look at me and run the other direction.”

Kanaya is quiet for a moment, contemplating. “You and John have been friends for a long time, right?”

“Years,” you say. And you know you've definitely been reading too many stupid troll books with Karkat, 'cause you keep going, “I mean we were like. Full pale. Top tier moirails kinda shit, BFFs of the highest order. 'Cept I wanted to go flush for him, and he never even looked at me like that even once.”

Kanaya rests her cheek against the top of your head. “So, even if John was upset about you kissing him, do you really think he would run from you again?”

You bite your lip. “What if he doesn't give me the chance to explain? To say sorry? I just. I don't know what I'd do. If. If he just. It would _crush_ Karkat.”

“It would crush you, too, I think,” Kanaya says. “It's okay to be afraid for yourself, too. As much as you love Karkat, I think you're using him as a crutch to avoid confronting the possibility of being happy.”

You groan. “You're as bad as Rose.”

“I do try.”

“I'm so afraid.” You take in a shaky breath. “I can't bear to see him actually hate me.”

“I don't think he will hate you,” Kanaya murmurs. “I think, between dying in your session, and whatever experiences he's had in the afterlife, he will have come to realize that your friendship is worth more to him than being angry.”

You close your eyes with a sigh. “I really, really hope so.”

“Or, think of it this way,” Kanaya says, soft but spiked with hard truth, “What's worse? To go on, knowing you could do something, knowing you could _try_ , and running from that, or to move forward with the potential for something good. The way I see it, doing nothing means that _you're_ the one walking away, Dave. But it's your choice.”

You stutter through a humorless laugh. “It's always a choice, isn't it?”

Something clangs above you. Terezi falls out of a vent with a noise that sounds like a distressed cat. Before she can land in a heap on the metal floor, you flashstep out of Kanaya's lap to catch her. When time moves again, you both go down to the floor, hard.

“Ow, fuck.”

Terezi stumbles up. “Trouble,” she gasps, swaying dangerously. “We've got a fucking _problem_.”

Kanaya is suddenly standing next to her, putting a steadying hand on her shoulder. “What's going on?”

“We're on collision course,” Terezi wheezes. “There's. Something. I think—they're dead planets. I don't know. But we're gonna hit. Hit them.”

Kanaya presses her lips together. “Dave. Get Karkat. As fast as you can.”

You've never flashstepped so quick in your life.

Part of you wants to sit there, in frozen time, so you can give yourself a moment to think. A moment to _breathe_.

Another part of you says, _isn't this enough? It's time to let go. It's time to move on_.

You're so tired of blaming yourself. You're so tired of being afraid.

Terezi leans heavily on Kanaya, avoiding putting pressure on one of her legs. Gamzee stands on her other side, looking surprisingly alert and frowning slightly. Karkat looks like he's about to throw up.

You take his hand. He squeezes it too hard. You squeeze back.

“We've got, like, two minutes, by my nose,” Terezi says. “But I also slammed my face into the wall a couple of times in the vents, so I don't know if you can trust that.”

“We'd better hurry,” Kanaya says. “If we're gonna do this.”

Karkat swallows hard. “Okay. Okay. Yeah. We're. Gonna. Yeah. Everyone, grab onto me. I think.”

Gamzee slips behind you and holds onto Karkat's shoulder. Terezi reaches out and takes Karkat's hand, and Kanaya grabs his other shoulder. For a moment, the realness of this washes over you. At the worst, you die a terrible death and get scattered across the afterlife.

Nothing to be afraid of.

You are so, so afraid. You hope Karkat can't feel the tremble in your hand. You trust him, but you're so scared of the universe ripping happiness away from you like it loves doing. A tragic teleportation accident would be the perfect opportunity to clean up leftovers from a doomed timeline.

You're already living on stolen time.

You don't care. You'll fight for these stolen moments. You're owed this much, for your trouble.

“I—” Karkat starts. “I want. You all to know.”

“No, not the sappy leader speech,” Terezi groans.

Karkat glares at her, but it's weak.

“I want you to know,” he says, “that if I fuck this up. I'm really sorry. And that. I love you all.”

“Oh,” Terezi says, very softly. “That's.” She sniffs. You can't tell if it's her checking how much time you have left or if she's actually touched.

It doesn't matter either way, because Karkat's doing the blood thing.

You feel a tugging in your chest. It's like a wicked case of vertigo, but concentrated in your rib cage. For a terrible moment, you feel like you're gonna pass out, or vomit, and you hope that if either of those happen, Karkat will make sure to keep a hold on you, still.

You catch air in your lungs, and hold your breath. For the first time since you started the game, you feel the seconds slip away from you. You have no idea how much time passes in between spaces, and maybe that's why. You're traversing space in the Furthest Ring, which means you're traversing time, too. You try to count, in your head, and lose track after three seconds, and that suddenly makes you feel cold and scared more than anything else.

For a terrible, terrible, unending moment, you feel your universe fold in on itself, and the only thing keeping you a part of it is the prick of Karkat's claws into your hand.

You feel like a rumpled blanket in a pool of honey. Slowly, someone drags the corners this way and that, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. You're disgruntled and sick and flattened into nothing, and fuck, you are _so_ glad you were unconscious the last time Karkat dragged you through space like this. This is hell.

Then, suddenly, the last of the wrinkles pull taut, and you're just wading through honey, slow and sweet-thick, but you're _you_ again, and the air rushes back into your lungs in one fell swoop. You breathe in the scent of fresh-cut grass, and you open your eyes to blink into a familiar Earth sun.

Your companions are standing around you, all breathing like they've just run a marathon. Karkat's nose is bleeding bright red. Terezi bends over at the waist and promptly vomits teal on Karkat's feet.

“Gross,” you pant.

“Fuuuuck,” Terezi groans.

Karkat tugs hard on your arm, and he stumbles out of the circle of your friends before anyone else can spew on him. You let him pull you, and you finally fucking grow a pair and look in the direction he's dragging you and—yeah. Yeah, that's John, standing there.

He's standing at the edge of a lake, but he's turned towards the two of you. His eyes are shock-white, dead. You knew this. He's watching you, and you're watching him, and its like you suddenly can't breathe again, but he's the Heir of Breath, and he can save you like no one else can, if only he'd choose to.

You feel that choice, stretching out before you. It's always down to choice, isn't it?

John takes a single step forward, face a picture of wary hope, and you don't deserve that look, you don't deserve for him to look at you like he can't believe you're here, not when you missed him so fucking much.

One step, and then another. And then he's running towards you, and you can't believe this is real, and you rip your hand free from Karkat's (sorry, Karkat) because you're running to him, too.

Karkat's only a pace behind you, anyway, and when you and John collide like planets, Karkat's there to keep you both steady so you don't fall. You connect like the force of hurricanes, like clouds thundering together after a lightning strike. You tangle together, limbs wild and uncoordinated, but wrapped around each other.

And then you're fucking weightless, 'cause John's picking you up and spinning you, laughing, swearing, crying, and you hold on for dear life. You're just as bad, you're sure, but you can't actually feel any of it. Karkat's got red tears down his cheeks to match the bright red blood still on his lip.

It really is all a choice. Just a choice. Even if you hadn't been hurtling towards certain death, deus-ex-meteoric-death, you know you would have chosen this chance. You can't argue with the logic of expected value, when the desired outcome is priceless. It's like trying to cancel out one infinity with another—the math just doesn't work.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” John laughs-slash-sobs as he sets your feet back on the ground.

“I don't know,” you splutter out. “John. John. You're here.”

“Me?” John says, incredulous. “How are _you_ here?”

“Doesn't matter,” you say. “You're here.”

You peel yourself off of John enough to nod in Karkat's direction. “Karkat, c'mere.”

Karkat swipes at his cheeks, finally wipes the blood from his nose off on his sleeve. He snuffles, but he doesn't rush in like you expect. “I don't—should—I. Um.”

John lets go of you with one arm only to grab Karkat by the hood of his cape and drag him into the hug. Karkat flails and smacks you in the face, sending your glasses spilling onto the ground, and you don't give a shit.

“I missed you,” Karkat chokes out against John's shoulder.

“Missed me? You've only just met me.”

“No,” you say, “John, we both missed you. So much. You have no idea. You—John. John.”

John laughs wetly. “Okay. You both missed me,” he concedes. “Explain it to me, then. We've got all the time in the world.”

You know for a fact that's not true. But you don't know how much time you _do_ have. Despite being the Knight of Time, you've never known what the future holds, not really. You don't know how long this will last. You hope it lasts forever.

You'll fight for forever, if you have to. Because that's what a Knight does. You fight. You protect. You're never giving this up. You'll swear your loyalty to these two boys, and you'll die for them, and you chase them across the universe.

Doomed or not, you'll fight for this scrap of serenity. You'll defend it to your dying breath.

It's a choice. And in this moment, you choose to believe John. You choose to believe tomorrow will come. You choose to hope. That John will forgive you. Things will work out.

From somewhere behind you, Kanaya calls, “I told you so.”

“Eat shit!” you answer her.

“That's hardly an appropriate way to treat a lady,” says Rose's voice, and you start crying all over again.

“Dave, is that you?” says Jade, and then there's another set of arms curled around you, and Jade's hair is in your mouth.

Karkat says, “Oh, no,” a moment before all four of you go tumbling to the ground, unbalanced by the additional limbs and excitement.

The pile just keeps growing, then, as the others join you, until you're a pile of stupid sappy idiots instead of dragon plushies, and you don't care that Karkat's elbow is digging into your gut because you've got Jade's smile in your periphery and John is a solid weight across you.

Terezi shouts, “Canonball!” and then flops uselessly on top of you all because her fucked up leg won't let her get away with jumping.

This is stolen time. You know this. But doomed doesn't mean hopeless. You count every second, and you tuck them away in your heart, little grains of stardust you intend to treasure for eternity, however long that is.

Your name is Dave Strider. You are happy. So, so happy.

**Author's Note:**

> the working title of this fic was "i have viv i hate viv i hate viv i hate viv i hate viv i ha.odt"
> 
> karkat i'm so sorry somehow by the end of this you never actually got to smooch john so i'm stating for the record that karkat gets so much john smooches post fic


End file.
